Bird Cage Fires
by FallingDomino
Summary: After finding a naked girl on a lonely stretch of California road on a stormy night, Sam doesn't have long to try and help the amnesiac girl before Dean drags him back into the life of hunting. Over the past three years, he never really forgot her, but when they reunite, the brothers discover something much more sinister about the night Sam saved her. Sam/OC, Before S1, skips to S4
1. Doves in Hands

**I don't want to make this AN too long so let's get right off the bat.**

**Firstly, thanks for reading. I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters, asides from my brand new OC.**

**Second; HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAMMY!**

**The story starts slightly prior to the pilot episode, but soon transcends to the fourth season.**

**For any of you who read my other stories, you must think I'm a sex craze by now considering I always leave a warning in the beginning of almost my fics about heavy smut. IT'S FUN TO WRITE, ALRIGHT? Other things such as violence and swearing will be in this too, and I'll make sure to leave a warning in the AN if there happens to be any heavy adult content of any kind, should you not be comfortable with it.**

**Thanks for your time, and enjoy!**

_-One-_

Doves in Hands

_**Stanford, California**_

_**October 21st, 2005**_

_**7:56 p.m**_

_I always forget that stupid bump in the road, _Sam thought, swearing quietly as his car gave a small jerk as he drove down the nearly deserted backroad, which was shining with the remnant puddles of previous rainfall. The long branches from the trees on the side of the road were blowing ghostly in the strong winds, flying flecks of raindrops catching the light of the moon. He ignored the wind battering against the windows, its force so strong that for a few seconds it temporarily swerved the car a few centimeters.

As he heard his cell phone ringing, he struggled to root through his bag while keeping his eyes on the road, smiling a little as he saw the caller ID.

"Hey, Jess. I'm almost there."

"_Oh, great. Did you get the popcorn and Twizzlers?"_

"Yeah," he laughed, "I'll be there soon."

"_Awesome. Sarah and Fred are going to be here in ten-ish minutes and I already got out the Scrabble and Monopoly, also all the geekiest movies I could lay my paws on._"

"You're really set on this, huh?"

"_Yes," _she answered simply, "_Geekends are about the most exciting thing to be invented since Snickers ice cream. Anyway, I thought you liked Star Trek?"_

"More of a Star Wars fan, honestly."

"_Traitor," _she scathed lovingly.

Sam could hear the grin in his own voice as he spoke next, "Alright, I submit, but you have to consider calling it something other than Geekends; it's not the best incentive."

"_Says you," _she said, "_I just want you to have fun tonight; you deserve it, working your butt off the way you have been lately. Drive carefully, okay? I'll see you in a few and I love you!"_

"Love you too, Jess," Sam smiled and he hung up.

Now with only the radio for company, Sam listened vaguely to _Happy Together _by The Turtles playing softly, not nearly loud enough to overthrow the sound of the first few sprinkles of rain tapped loudly on the windshield or the roaring wind outside that was making its haunting howls more pronounced. He eyed the clouds above, which were thick, roundish, and had waves of white light flickering through them, proving a thunderstorm was on its way. He was soon having to squint his eyes and lean forward in the leather seat, slowing down almost twenty miles per hour. The wipers were making that loud squeaking noise and soon the windows were fogging up, making vision next to impossible.

_'I can't see me lovin' nobody but you for all my life; when you're with me, baby the skies will be blue for all my life,' _sang the radio, now barely audible due to the loud rain and bad reception.

"Damn it," Sam whispered. _I can't see anything. _The only reason he wasn't crashing was because he could still make sense of the double yellow lines in the center of the road, giving him an idea as to where the car was. He couldn't even hear his phone ringing and only noticed because it lit up again, but he thought he might crash into a tree if he didn't give the road his full attention.

The rain was becoming so powerful and fierce that it merely looked as though a billion different lines were painted in the scenery, obscuring ten feet in front of him.

_I'll just stop by the gas station up the road and give Jess a call, tell her I'm going to be a little late._

Though as the moments pressed on, Sam wondered if he would even make it that far.

There was a flash of white light that blended out every rain drop cleanly, lighting up the entire road only for a mere second. But in that second, Sam swore he could see something falling through the tall tree branches that hovered over the road.

"_Fu_—!" Sam slammed his foot on the brake so hard that it felt as though his seatbelt was compressing his organs and bones together. The car, no doubt due to the thick puddles of rain on the road, skidded an extra foot until the shape of whatever just fell was concealed completely by the hood. With panicky fingers, he put the car into park and took off his seatbelt, scrambling out the door and into the insane downpour of the storm.

It was hard to see even in the light of the headlights, but the next near blinding flash of lightening revealed that it was a person. The person, a girl, was lying on her back with her arms crossed over her chest and her hands folded as though she were holding something. She was completely naked, her light hair clinging to the road, swaying to the right of her body with the direction of the small stream that picked up.

Sam bent down, checking her pulse with two fingers he fought to keep sturdy. Her pulse was not only pumping, but pounding so hard against his fingers it was as though she had just crossed the ribbon of a twelve mile marathon.

_Is she drugged up? _Sam wondered fearfully, sweeping his wet bangs out of his face and squinting his eyes at her folded hands that appeared to be twitching. _It looked like she fell from the sky, though._

"Hey, can you here me?" he asked quickly, violently shaking his jacket off. He did not get an answer, but as he made to put the jacket over her pale, nude body, her hands began twitching again, like whatever she was holding within them was trying desperately to free itself. He made to unravel them, but before he could, the thing wriggled from under her fingers and at last broke free.

It was a bird, a dove, flapping its instantly damp wings dully and attempting to fly away, but the heaviness of the rain weighed it down immediately. Sam stared at it for only two seconds, allowing himself no time to ponder the strangeness of it and hastened to wrap his jacket securely around the girl and scooping her up into his arms. She was very light so he had no struggle getting her into the backseat of his car.

_._

Sam barely kicked in the two front doors of the hospital before calling, "Hey, I really need a doctor over here!"

Several people in mint-green scrubs attended to him almost at once, helping her body onto a rolling stretcher and shooting questions at Sam as he jogged to keep up.

"What happened?" one female nurse asked him.

"I'm not sure; I was driving and it looked like she fel—she was in the middle of the road."

"You don't personally know her?"

"No, I just—no, I don't."

"What were you doing driving on a night like this?"

"I was making a quick trip to the grocery store; the weather wasn't as bad when I left my apartment."

"She didn't have anything on her? Wallet, or ID of any kind?" shot a third male nurse at him.

"No," replied Sam edgily, eyes locking onto the girl's face which was as peaceful as though she had just taken an afternoon nap. He took a moment to register to what he thought was blonde hair in the darkness, was actually straight locks of pure white hair. "No, she was completely—completely naked when I found her. I just checked for a pulse and then came here."

A firm hand on his chest kept him from following the stretcher through the next pair of double doors. A female nurse had stopped him and he obeyed calmly, but his eyes followed the stretcher until the doors closed.

"We're going to run a few tests on the patient, see the possibilities if this was a rape, a hit and run, or something else. You may not know her, but we'd like you to stick around so we can ask you a few more questions. That alright?"

Sam opened his mouth, paused, and then nodded. His fingers were twitching anxiously; he was desperate to get a hold of Jess and let her know what was going on and why he wasn't at the apartment yet.

"Great, thank you. What's your name?"

"Sam Winchester."

"Well, Sam, you've been a real hero tonight."

Sam only frowned and gave a half-nod of thanks. "Um, if it's alright, I'd like to make a quick call before we get to the questioning?"

"Sure."

Jess freaked of course, somehow misunderstanding Sam into thinking that _he _was the one in an accident.

"No, really; I'm alright, Jess," he assured her, glancing around a corner and combing his fingers through his damp hair. "It was this girl in the middle of the road."

"_Girl? In the road? Who is she, do you know?"_

"No idea. I just made sure her heart was beating and then rushed to the hospital. They're running tests on her now."

"_Ohmygosh," _Jess breathed. "_I'm so glad no one got hurt, I mean hope she's okay. I think I should head over there."_

"You don't have to worry about it, Jess," he dismissed, "I just want to make sure she's not in a coma or anything and then I'll head out. I think I'm going to miss that double-date."

"_Don't even worry about it, Sam. Just make sure that girl is okay. Damn, that is so weird . . . are you __**sure **__you don't want me to come down there?"_

"I'm sure; it's still pouring out there and I don't want anymore accidents happening. I'll keep on giving you an update, alright?"

"_Alright, you knight in shining armor, you. I love you."_

"Love you, too."

The questions the doctors inquired of him were very basic; has he ever met the girl before, what condition was her body in, did she have any bruises or cuts, or any blood to speak of. The doctors left off a vague hint that the local police department was going to have to be involved and that Sam was going to have to answer all of the same questions all over again. Sam didn't mind very much, but as he checked his watch to see that it was nearly ten, he was becoming very anxious to see Jess.

Sam sat in the lobby, twiddling his thumbs together and gazing unseeingly at the abnormally loud clock on the wall opposite him, an approaching figure in a long white doctor's coat dragging his attention away from it. He stood up, swiping a hand down his tired face and blinking rapidly in attempt to make himself more awake.

"Sam Winchester?" the middle-aged doctor inquired, folding his clipboard under his arms. As Sam nodded, the doctor continued, "I'm Dr. Schultz. We've run all the tests we could think of on the victim and so far, not a one came out positive. There's no traces of seamen, no strained tissue, or any sign of a struggle, so we've ruled out the possibility of rape. In fact, there's no marking, bruising, cuts, or any indication that she was hurt at all. All of her vitals are in good working condition and her blood sugar is fine, a little dehydrated though. Her bloodstream is completely clean, too. You say she was just lying in the middle of the road in complete nudity?"

"Yeah," said Sam, putting his hands in his back pockets and frowning.

Dr. Schultz breathed out heavily so his bushy white mustache ruffled. "Well, hopefully we'll have some answers when she wakes up."

"So she's okay? I mean, she's not in a coma?"

The doctor gave him a small smile. "No, son. She's going to be just fine."

Sam sighed out in relief. "Okay. Thanks a lot, doctor."

"No, thank _you. _Who knows what might have happened to her if you hadn't found her when you did? Anyways, I assume you want some kind of update with her when she wakes up?"

"Yeah, that'd be fine."

"Right, well you can leave your contact information with my assistant, Judith, here . . ."

The storm took an abnormally quick amount of time clearing up, considering how bad it was but by the time Sam finally left the hospital, there were still a few sprinkles of rain drizzling on the windshield. Sam nearly fainted out of joy when he opened his apartment door only to find Jess had made him a steaming bowl of tomato soup and hot mug of herbal tea.

"Thanks so much, Jess," he sighed as he sat at the table.

"Anything for the guy who saves stranded girls on the road," she said, running her fingers through the still-damp locks of his hair before kissing him gently on the temple and sitting beside him. "Was it a long night? Did they find anything out about her?"

"Nothing, but they're going to give me a call when she wakes up, but they didn't clarify for when that might be."

"This is some weird crap going on. I'm just glad everyone's okay. Anyways, you must be exhausted. Want to get an early night?"

With sweet alleviation, after Sam was done with his dinner, he changed and crawled into bed after Jessica, holding her tender body gently under his arms but thinking hard over the events of the last few hours.

Sam tried to think of any logical explanation, any at all, that could answer the cause for the girl in the road. Admitting it was of anything of _that _world threatened to break down the walls he had spent so long maintaining. What if whatever the girl said when she woke up meant he had to look into it? Sam had sworn he had let that life behind when he left his father and Dean nearly two years ago, but if something was out there hurting people, could he just let it go?

Sam felt as if he had been sleeping for twenty minutes when someone was gently shaking his shoulder and he opened his eyes to meet Jess's smiling blue orbs.

"Hey, sleepyhead," she cooed, "I would've let you sleep in, but the sheriff's here to talk to you."

"Huh?" he said, sitting upright and blinking rather rapidly.

"About the girl? Remember?"

"Right, right," he murmured, grudgingly tossing the blankets off himself. "Hey, did the hospital call?"

Jess smiled. "Yeah, they did and they say she's awake and really anxious to meet you."

.

Sam would have dropped by the hospital immediately after the sheriff had bombarded him with the identical questions the doctors had asked him, but he had three of his college classes to attend to before he could meet the girl.

It was roughly a good day; Professor Stewart had graded his paper with a 97 with a small note at the top, '_Very astute piece of writing, though if the case were malum prohibitum you would have more luck defending your client who performed a white crime opposed to a dangerous one.'_

After having lunch with Jess and Brady, he announced he was going to at last go to the hospital and meet the mysterious girl. The doctor behind the counter recognized him from the other day and smiled warmly at him.

"Sam Winchester, right?" And as Sam nodded, "Right, well, she's awake, and she says she's dying to meet you. However, there are some technicalities that we didn't foresee."

"Like what?"

"Like she says she's suffering from total amnesia," Dr. Schultz replied and Sam raised his eyebrows.

"Completely?"

"Can't remember anything, not even her own name. We've taken it into consideration that when she ended up there she might have hit her head, or suffered highly on a traumatic level. Either way, we're appointing her a head scan soon. Would you like to see her?"

Sam nodded.

.

The girl was sitting completely upright in the hospital bed with her arms folded uncertainly in her lap, eyes flickering around the room until Sam entered who she anchored her gaze immediately on. She gave off an almost comical impression that she had not the faintest idea as to how she had ended up there. Her expression barely shifted as Sam edged his way awkwardly closer, smiling slightly as he pulled up one of the plastic chairs but not sitting on it yet.

He was not sure of her eye-color until she shifted a little so her gaze caught the glare of the white light above. It appeared to be a very dark green with a heavy black line that rimmed them. The whites of her eyes were unusually clean of any veins, making the green more pronounced.

There was a slightly youthful look to her that Sam struggled to grasp the reason behind. Was it that she seemed to open her eyes more so than others, giving off the illusion that they were bigger? Maybe her pale skin that had little to no healthy flush in it that gave Sam the impression of a porcelain doll. Under her right eye, on the top of her cheek bone was an imperfect beauty mark, taking more of a sideways oval shape than circular. The bottom of her lip was bigger than the top, and as they parted Sam could see her bottom row of teeth were slightly crooked in some places. Her cheekbones were high, jaw slightly narrow, and high upper eyelids that only did more work on making her look younger.

Despite her young look, Sam thought her to look at least in her late teens to early twenties.

Though of course the strangest feature about her was her pure white sheet of completely straight hair. Sam had a feeling if he held up a sheet of printer paper to it, her hair would have made it look gray.

Her button nose crinkled slightly as he sat down before her, folding his arms in front of him and trying to smile gently again. "Uh, hi."

She watched him, her lips working oddly, as if she was trying to remember how to smile. "Hello."

"Um, my name is Sam Winchester. I guess, uh, I guess I'm the one who found you."

Again, her eyebrows twitched to frown, but she looked as though she were struggling to remember how to form the expression. "Oh."

"They told me you said you can't remember anything."

"Anything at all," she confirmed, sinking a little further back into the mattress, her unblinking gaze still on him. "Even words. I couldn't answer the question they asked 'who is the president'. I can't even remember what a president is."

Sam's eyebrows rose against his will. "What's the first thing you remember?"

"This bed," she said, shifting again. "A beeping noise, a pain in my skin. The unfriendly white light above. I've asked them to turn it off but they say they need it for more testing. I don't want more testing. I want to go somewhere else."

The use of her words, the simplicity of them; they too gave off a slightly juvenile approach. Sam smiled again for some reason.

"Where would you go?" he asked her.

She looked stumped at the question. "I don't know the answer. The people here; they give me these small pills filled with white powder and tell me it will make me feel better. It makes me tired, which make my eyes shut . . ." She continued to watch him in a way that made Sam almost feel as if his privacy was being disturbed. "They told me you saved me, Sam Winchester. I can't fully remember what that means, only that I owe you in some manner."

Sam lifted up a quick hand, chuckling uncertainly. "Whoa there. Don't worry. You don't owe me anything. I couldn't just leave you there in the road. I'm just glad you're okay."

"I would like to say I am, if I could remember what 'okay' really meant. Do you know?"

The left corner of Sam's lips twitched upward with precariousness. "I guess you got me there." He noticed that her lips seemed to keep mainly parted, revealing the bottom of her front teeth. "I'm going to guess you don't recall a name?"

"Nothing. They've been calling me patient 'one-eighteen', but I have no recolle—recollec . . . I, uh, still have no memory. None. I still have to look every five minutes in the mirror to remember what I look like."

Sam frowned, sitting up straighter. "What's that like?"

"Funny. I can't remember a name, but I can tell that I like the way you wear your hair." She looked at him. "Is that weird?"

Sam smiled timidly. "I think it's a good sign, actually. Well—do you know any names? I mean you have to call yourself something until you remember."

For the first time, she smiled, and the simple action was very effective in changing the light on her face. The apples of her cheeks became very bold when her lips stretched upward, and this small change made her eyes seem brighter somehow. "I like your—confidence, Sam Winchester. The white-coated men and women say the possibility of my memories returning are entirely unpredictable. I would prefer to have them back; it's a struggle not to remember who I am, the things I like and dislike, my favorite food and music. I am not much of a person without them."

"I'm sure it'll come to you eventually," said Sam, leaning back in his chair and wondering if he believed his own words.

"I don't know that. They've sent out pictures of myself in case anyone recognizes me, but they say I might have to be transferred to a hospital in a place called Colorado to see more doctors, ones that are more suited to dealing with my condition."

_The loony bin, _Sam thought before he could stop himself. "How do you feel about that?"

"I don't like the idea of more doctors, but I want to remember." She paused. "Even a name."

"Well, what do you want to call yourself in the meantime?"

"It should mean something. At least, I think it should." She got a very strange glint in her eye, smiling in a way that was much too mischievous for a girl who probably couldn't even remember what that word meant. "You should name me."

"What?" Sam laughed.

"I'd rather you than me; I don't know any. You seem like a nice, tall person; you could probably come up with a good one."

Sam looked at her childishly expectant face carefully, wondering why he was smiling so widely. "What if I gave you a really stupid one and you wouldn't know it was stupid?"

"I wouldn't mind; I would just be glad to have something that yougave me."

They eyed one another for a few moments, up until Sam chuckled again and scratched his chin with a small shrug. "Um, I don't know." His eyes fixed on her hair, trying to think of some name that could relate to it, but all that came to mind was Storm from _X-Men. _Storm. Well, he _did _find her in a storm, maybe that was some kind of sign, and he did kind of like it. He coughed, "Uh, what about—how do you feel about Storm?"

"Storm?" The sparkle returned to her eyes, but her lips were closed this time when she smiled. "I like it. My name is when the rain falls. Thank you, Sam Winchester."

"Just Sam," he smiled. "Hopefully you can remember everything soon."

"Are you leaving?" she asked as he stood up.

"Yeah, I probably should. But I'm really glad you're okay, uh, Storm."

She looked confused as to what to feel, but she was frowning at the mattress. She glanced back up at him. "Will you be able to visit again?"

"Um, maybe," he said, seeing no reason why he couldn't.

She smiled shyly and her eyes flickered, as though embarrassed to make eye-contact. "I'd like that. I want to see your face again many times in the future."

Sam chortled, "Alright. I'll try my best."

.

Later the next day as the aging nurse named Betty was checking Storm's blood pressure, she said with a minxy wink that collided oddly with the wrinkles around her eyes, "Saw that cutie-patootie visiting you earlier. Now that's what you call Prince Charming, I suppose."

"He is charming," Storm agreed, "A prince—I haven't asked."

Betty looked as if she wasn't sure whether to inform the amnesiac girl of the fairy tale, but as Storm looked up at her, she merely smiled tightly and made to remove the band from her bicep.

"Can I take a walk?" Storm asked.

"A walk where?"

"Somewhere—anywhere that isn't in this room. I'd like some air."

"Patients aren't permitted to exit the establishment. If you want to stretch your legs, you can walk around the hospital for a bit."

Storm nodded, desperate to get out of the tiny square room and away from the whites tiles, white walls, and the lights that left temporary specks in her vision. Though admittedly, wandering the narrow corridors was not much better. The perfectly symmetrical walls and tiles made her feel vaguely dizzy and the stares she got from the other patients who were eying her hair were making her feel out place.

Nearing the front of the hospital, Storm discovered the gift shop which was more like a miniature book store. Grateful she could at least remember to read, she entered it and asked the tired looking man behind the counter if she could stay for awhile and browse the shelves of novels and magazines. He gave a noncommittal grunt of approval and Storm happily indulged herself in several different books which ranged from cooking ones to the children's section.

After awhile of being stuffed in the dark corner of the deserted shop, Storm found herself surrounded by tall towers of books of almost every genre. Currently she held one that helped identify certain breeds of birds. It had captured her eye at once and sometimes she found herself guessing the name of bird before she even read on it, making her wonder if she was some sort of bird keeper before the incident.

A pair of old sneakers appeared in her vision, and her eyes lifted up along long legs and pronounced torso, which then led to Sam Winchester's face which was split in a small, friendly smile.

"They told me I could find you here," he said, shifting a heavy-looking black book bag over his shoulder, surveying her criss-crossed position.

"I'm glad you came again," she said, lowering the book into her lap.

"Yeah, of course. I'm guessing no snappy miracles of getting your memory back happened as you slept?"

"Nothing. It's a little disconcerting, but only if I think about it for too long." She stood up, pointing at his bag. "What's that for?"

"Oh, I just came back from college. You remember . . . ?" Sam was uncertain whether it was rude or not to ask if she remembered what college was, but she smiled.

"I do. What are you studying?"

"Mainly law, with a few other side classes of criminal justice. I—just wanted to see how you're doing. About the same?"

"More or less."

Sam watched her handle the book. "Oh, you like birds?"

She looked down at it, and then back at him. "I think I do, which I guess is a good sign. The doctor also suggested I go through a baby name book and see if I find mine."

"Here," said Sam, indicating for her to hand him the book. With only the slightest of pauses, she did and Sam placed the book on the counter, pulling out his wallet.

"You're buying me the book?"

"I mean, you have to have something to keep you occupied in here," he said, handing it back to her after a quick 'thanks' to the cashier. They walked out of the book store together.

"Thank you," she said seriously, meeting him dead in the eye and gratefulness hanging to every breathy tone. Sam laughed uncertainly.

"Don't worry about it. Worth every four dollars and fifty cents." Storm giggled. "So do you know what's next on the agenda?"

"They're going to run a cat scan—which for the life of me I really have no memory of, and I'm just imagining someone placing a cat over my face."

"Not sure that's how it works," smiled Sam as they started walking their way slowly down the hallway. "It's a big machine that they put you under and do an X-ray of your brain. They'll probably be searching for places that you could have bumped your head and ended you up with memory loss."

"My nurse also said that something very traumatic could have made all of this happen, which makes me a little wary of remembering. If something so bad happened that my brain forced me to forget it, maybe it's safer turning a blind eye."

Sam had no response to this.

.

As it turned out, Sam did visit Storm frequently the next few days. The longest he stayed was a good half an hour or hour on a rainy day. She never asked much of him, but she did request things one that lost their memory would only require. For instance, she came up with a game in which Sam would pick a word from the dictionary and she would try to guess what they meant. Depending on the word, she was about fifty-fifty with getting them correct. She was particularly confused when Sam found the word 'apple-knocker'(an ignorant or unsophisticated person)and was convinced he was making it up until he showed her the page it was listed on.

Sam had brought a playing deck of Uno cards that had been stuffed in the back of his closet in the apartment for the longest time and knew she would thoroughly enjoy them. It didn't take much to please her; he could hold up his fingers to a light and make a shadow puppet and she would call him a glorious, tall, nice person. She nearly lost her head completely when he told her she could keep the cards.

Sam could understand her behavior; apart from a vague idea of common sense, with no memory to recall the world before, everything was shiny and new to her, resulting in a slightly youthful behavior.

He didn't mind spending time with her, in fact, he enjoyed it almost as much as she seemed to. He liked that she liked little things, such as when she expressed the feeling that it was fun for her to watch him do his homework, how when he really concentrated the wrinkles between his eyebrows when frowning would form an upside down 'U'. He liked that she would never eat her Jello, but poke at it with her spoon for nearly five minutes just to watch it wiggle. He liked how curious she was almost about everything, mostly about the things he did. She said she liked to hear him talk about his college classes even if she knew nothing about them, but just enjoyed seeing how his eyes lit up when he spoke of something he had a passion for.

Within the first week, Storm had discovered that she liked things such as writing and drawing, with little patience for math and science. Though she was not very good at either, Sam was able to make out a sort of bird on the printer paper the doctor had given her to draw on. Her handwriting was a little messy, but she was glad she could at least remember how to spell.

On Friday, Sam finally thought it a good idea to bid to Jessica's curious desires and introduce the two. Storm liked Jess a lot, greeting her with a compliment on her long, curly blonde hair and left it off on an inquiry as to why she was the only one with white locks.

On a chilly Sunday afternoon, Sam sat beside her bed, playing Uno which was usually how they started their visit. The wind lashed against the window and the open blinds revealed the gray clouds that were almost identical to the ones that had been in the sky the night Sam found her.

"Dr. Schultz told me yesterday that I'll be transferred to another hospital on Wednesday," Storm started carefully as she placed her red card over the one Sam had just placed in the pile. His gaze lifted.

"Oh, um . . . do you still not want to go?"

"This past week, the reluctance has built. I've enjoyed our time together—more so than you can imagine, Sam Win—" She cut herself off with a guilty smile. "I can at least say that I will always have the name you gave me; this is a strange comfort."

Sam sat back in his chair, fondling the cards softly between his fingers and trying to smile, but it almost hurt to try and force it. He sincerely wanted Storm to get better; he wanted her to remember her life, her likes and dislikes, for her to return to her family. He supposed he was merely disgruntled at how little he had to offer her, or just the small part he had played for her. He wished he could help to any degree, but he knew there was nothing he could do. He guessed he had made her stay at the hospital a little more enjoyable, but the week had flown by much too quickly and Sam was sad, even mortified, that they would be taking their own paths soon.

Knowing she would be gone in the next few days, Sam found himself strangely thinking about all the things that he would be missing about her; her slightly crooked teeth, how when she laughed she really gave it her all and resembled something like a chicken that had too much bird feed stuck in its throat, her unbreakable interest in whatever he had to say, or how she had a very specific way of speaking and that honesty was something she never left out, whatever she might say.

The next few days that felt much more like three hours, the weather had not submitting to a warmer climate and on Sam's last visit to Storm, the gray atmosphere that could be seen outside of her room window had never been so miserably pronounced. He rattled his knuckles twice on the door even if Storm had already acknowledged his presence. Opposed to her general position under the covers, she was sitting on the edge of her bed with a paper and pencil, using the bird book as a hard surface.

"Hey," he greeted.

"Hi."

"Guess this is my last chance to see you."

"I'm being flown to Colorado with an escort tomorrow—so yes." In a pause where the only noise was the wind was battering so fiercely against the glass window it was as if it was trying to force itself inside, they measured each other carefully with one another's stare. "I'm sad about this."

His lips twitched, but his face seemed very unwilling to permit a smile. He handed her a small slip of paper. "It's my phone number. Keep in touch."

She took it with all her ten thin fingers, examining it longer than necessary. She looked up with a sad smile. "I will. I have a piece of paper for you, too."

She handed him the paper she had just been drawing on and Sam let out an appreciative chuckle. It was more or less better than a child's drawing, but Sam knew he could hardly do better. He could at least make out the scene of a girl, obviously Storm, sitting on a bed and an exaggeratedly tall male sitting beside her. Both were holding Uno cards. They were unnecessarily labeled 'Storm' and 'Sam Winchester.'

"This is great. Thanks."

"Now's the part where you tell me you'll hang it on your refrigerator," she said and Sam laughed.

"Yeah, obviously. This is top quality refrigerator material."

He fondled the paper softly. He still hadn't sat down, but he had a feeling this wasn't going to be one of those visits where they play cards and read books together.

"I'll miss you, Sam Winchester."

His gaze lifted to hers and his chest tightened. He nodded softly. "Yeah. I'll miss you, too."

"If we're lucky, maybe we'll meet in the near future. Maybe I'll become a law student and take the same classes you do."

"You could," he said half-heartedly still with that strained smile.

"Will you always be here?"

"I don't know where else I'd be."

"I'll come back here knocking on the door like in that movie with the guy and the ax! Heeeeere's Stormy!"

"Yeah, but if you hack at the front door with an ax, I think you might scare Jessica."

"Maybe a little. I'll do it very discreetly."

A breathy laugh left his nostrils. "Alright."

"I want you to take good care of yourself, because I like the way you are, so don't change."

"You take care of yourself, too. Make sure to call and tell me if there's any progress with your memory."

"I'll call everyday, if you want."

"Don't strain yourself."

There was a knock on the door and a young male nurse poked his head in the room. "Stor—um, miss? There's a few papers and discussion we need to go over before you leave early tomorrow. If you could come with me?"

Storm got to her feet, but she was still staring up at Sam, smiling. "This is the goodbye scene, then?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I suppose it is."

Sam was surprised when she suddenly hugged him, but was pleased all the same. Storm was not that short, but she still had to stand on her tippy toes in order for her face to be even somewhat level with his. Her lips just barely tickled the side of his cheek before she withdrew shyly, giggling in a terrified sort of way.

"Goodbye, Sam Winchester."

.

Sam was thinking hard all the way to his car, not even realizing he had missed the ignition several times before finally starting the engine. His brow was severely furrowed as he rolled out of the parking lot, turning on the windshield wipers as the next storm approached.

Then, with a jolt, he suddenly realized that he had been so caught up in everything, that he had _completely _forgotten about what had happened when he found her in front of his car. He hadn't mentioned to her that he had found a dove in her hands, but what with everything else, this trivial matter slipped from his mind entirely. Anyway, it was too late now, but he wondered vaguely where the bird was now, and why she was holding it in the first place.

Sam breathed out heavily, his chest rising and falling.

_Wow, _he thought, _I really **am **going to miss you._

* * *

**And that's that! My prologue-y chapter to this new story, and I really hope that you've enjoyed it! If it's not too much trouble, I'm dying to know what you think of it so far. Of course, all feedback is acceptable. **

**Also, sorry if there's a bunch of errors throughout it, but I'm terrible at proofreading.**

**Thanks for reading, and again, happy birthday, Sammy!**


	2. Some of Us Remember Those Stormy Nights

**I'm so happy that it seems many of you enjoyed the first chapter! Thanks for all the awesome starter reviews that pumped me up to write the second one. In case you were curious, this chapter is based on the ninth episode of season four, _I Know What You Did Last Summer._**

**Please enjoy!**

_-Two-_

Some of Us Remember Those Stormy Nights

_**Kingdom, Oklahoma**_

_**November 13th, 2008**_

_**11:40 am**_

_**Three Years Later**_

"Sammy, would you keep all of your crap contained in one side of the car? The hell is this?"

Sam swiped the wrinkled paper from Dean's fingers before he could thoroughly examine it.

"Nothing."

Dean raised two eyebrows. "You draw that?" he snickered, craning his neck to try and get a second glimpse, "Looks like a five year old did it. Well that's just adorable."

"No, I didn't draw it. Dude, let's just go."

"Seriously, what is it?" Dean was grinning.

"Dean," Sam said exasperatedly, folding the paper tightly together before stuffing it into the breast pocket of his jacket. He exited the Impala, hoping to discreetly end the conversation and to his relief, Dean just shrugged before following the youngest into the dimly lit bar.

There were not a great deal many people inside. While Dean was busy ordering up some food for the two of them, Sam had other things on his mind as he bought a beer from the bartender. With his eyes on the players of the pool table, he raised the beer to his mouth but kept his lips tightly shut, pretending to drink. Eventually, he gathered his way to the pool table where a large beefy man was evidently counting his winnings, looking up as the swaying man approached him.

"You bet?" Sam asked in a slightly vacant voice, taking another fake-sip of beer.

"How much?"

"Two hundred."

"You sober enough to deal, son?"

"I'm fine."

"F'you insist . . . what's your name?"

"Sam."

"Well, Sam, I'm Brian." They shook hands. "You set it up and go first."

Sam lost the first round, though purposefully. He let out a low breath that ruffled his bangs, staggering slightly as he got down from his sitting-position on the pool table.

"Brian, c'mon, man; just one more time," he slurred, "Just give me a chance to win it back."

"It's your money," Brian shrugged.

Sam caught sight of Dean making his way through the bar with a large plate of home fries in his right hand and cheeseburger in the other. He was looking at Sam warningly, and then to Brian. "Yeah, excuse me. Think my brother here is a little too sauced up to be makin' bets."

"He insisted," said Brian.

"Yeah, but you've already taken, what? Two bills of 'im? I'm just sayin'."

"Hey, shut up, Dean. I'm fine," said Sam.

"No you're not! You're drunk!"

Sam ignored his brother, turning back to Brian,"Let's make it five-hundred dollars."

"Five-hundred dollars?" Dean echoed angrily.

"Sure," said Brian. "Your break."

As Sam circled the pool table, he shot Dean an expression of which he hoped proved he was completely sober. Dean gave him a meaningful look, but Sam wasn't paying much attention to the game anymore. Across the building right by the bar was a familiar brunette looking his way. His jaw clenched as her eyes beckoned him over.

"Keep the money," he told Brian dismissively.

"Keep the money?" Dean demanded, "What—?" But he too spotted Ruby and released a small sigh of indignation as he followed Sam across the bar. "You gotta a lot of nerve to be showin' up here."

"I just have some info, and then I'm gone," she said, glancing from Dean to Sam.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"I'm hearing a few whispers."

"Oh great, demon whispers," Dean said with a sardonic nod of his head, "'Cause that's always reliable."

Ignoring Dean, Ruby pressed on with her eyes still on Sam, "Girl named Anna Milton escaped from a locked ward yesterday. The demons seem pretty keen on finding her. Apparently some really heavy-hitters turned up for the easter-egg hunt."

"Why? Who is she?"

"No idea. But I think she's important, 'cause the order is to capture her alive. I just figured whatever the deal is, you might wanna track down this girl before the demons do."

Sam shifted, planting a pressing glance on his brother. "Look, maybe we should check this out."

Dean gave Sam an irritable expression before directing at Ruby, "Actually, we're workin' on a case, but thanks."

"What case?" she said with slightly raised brows.

"Uh, we've got leads. Big leads."

"Sounds dangerous."

"Yeah, well, it sure ain't goose chasin' a random chick or two, for all we know, doesn't exist, just because you say she's important."

"I'm just delivering the news. You can do whatever you want with it. Far as I'm concerned, I told you. I'm done."

"Wait, wait, wait," said Sam before she could turn away and ignoring Dean's look of warning, "This hospital—it got a name?"

"Connor Beverly Behavioral Medicine Center—about a ten hour drive from here to Colorado."

The blood from the tips of Sam's fingers drained.

"Sammy?" said Dean as Sam's lips pursed.

"Thanks, Ruby," he said slowly and she stalked off.

"Sam, what was that? I just saw about ten alarm bells go off in your face," said Dean.

"It's nothing—I mean, it might be nothing."

"Might be and are—two completely different things. What's up?"

_It couldn't be the same hospital, could it? That was over three years ago, who is there to even say she's still there, if this is in fact the same one?_

Involuntarily, Sam pressed a hand over the small bulge in his breast coat pocket, hearing the paper crinkle. He met his brother's eyes.

"Dean, do you remember that time I told you about the night two weeks before Jess died?"

.

"I'm really not getting your taste in women, Sammy," mumbled Dean as they entered the hospital, patting his inner pockets to make sure his fake FBI badge was still in tact. He shot Sam a sideways glance. "I mean, first Madison, then Ruby, now we're actually checkin' in a loony bin for some chick that you used to know? Saved, whatever."

"I only knew her for a little more than a week," Sam said evasively.

"Yeah, and it's been like, what, three years since then? You really think she would remember you?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted with a small sigh, "Maybe not. I mean, last I checked she didn't remember anything before the night I found her. I want to check on her, see if she's okay or remembers anything."

Sam's mind wandered vaguely back to that night three years ago. He could not directly remember what she looked like, only that she had white hair and a beauty mark on her cheek. He also remembered he had given her his number so she could call him if she wanted, but what with Dean's sudden appearance, Jess' death, and looking for their father, he had forgotten to keep in touch.

"Always the heroic," Dean said with a small sniff of laughter as they approached the front desk. Any desire to make fun of his younger brother was soon snapped away as he caught sight of the attractive redheaded nurse who sat behind the counter, looking up expectantly at the two men. They pulled out their badges. "FBI, fed Arnold Peters and my partner Donald Ryan. We're here investigating the case of Anna Milton—and also I wouldn't mind investigating further into those pretty brown eyes."

Sam sighed out _the _sigh that he regularly did whenever in the company of his brother and attractive women. The nurse smiled at him but said, "The feds were here yesterday?"

"Our company likes us to do a very thorough investigation—y'know, scoop for anything the other detectives might've missed."

"Well, you're certainly more attractive than the last two were here."

Dean slipped on his lopsided smirk.

"Well, Anna's room is on the second floor, number B12. Tell them I sent you."

"Oh, um, if it's okay do you mind we ask you a few more questions?" Sam said hastily. She looked back up at him in surprise, but nodded. "Was there a—uh, Storm Anyone here who has been admitted within these past couple of years, if she isn't still?"

Sam suddenly wondered worriedly if she would have changed her name, and who could blame her? It was a really stupid name he came up with on the spot.

The nurse's red lips parted. "Storm—oh, you mean Storm Walker?" Dean snorted. "She was dismissed from this hospital one year ago."

"Really?" Sam said, eyebrows rising out of surprise. The nurse eyed him, almost suspiciously.

"Why do you need to know about her?"

"That's, uh, classified," said Sam, saying the first excuse that came to his head. "Do you know how she's doing?"

Sam must have been losing his image as an impressive authority figure because Dean suddenly said, "C'mon, Hercules," while tapping him on the shoulder to get him moving down the hallway. "Storm Walker? Does she have a long distance cousin named Luke Skywalker, or is she just Native American?"

"She must have given herself a last name over the years," said Sam thoughtfully, "I wonder why they dismissed her?"

"Dunno," Dean shrugged as they started walking up the stairs, glancing over his shoulder back at the front desk, "But did you see that girl? Felt like I just walked into one of those porn scenes with the sexy redhead nurse. Only, you know, blue scrubs instead of hot white mini dress."

Sam sighed exasperatedly as they reached the second floor. "Glad to see we're on the same page."

.

"And . . . why should I let you into the back room?"

The man's eyes, as everyone else's always did when first meeting Storm, flickered immediately to the mane of pure white starlit hair on her head. Depending on the person, it usually took about ten seconds for anyone to even register her facial features, but for this man behind the counter, it took him approximately fifteen for him to meet Storm's eyes.

"I used to be a patient here, not four years ago. I know they still keep a file on me and I'd like to see it," said Storm, eying his name tag that read 'Charlie.'

"Uh-huh," sniffed Charlie, "Well, we can't just hand out personal files to just anyone. You got a name?"

"Storm Walker."

If Suspicion had a face, Storm had a funny feeling that Charlie would live up to every expectation. His unusually straight brows were raising higher as he shifted another quick gaze to her hair.

"Oh yeah? So where's Wolverine and Cyclops?"

"Ohh . . . persuasion. I've read about this. I—have perky breasts."

The man blinked. "What?"

"That's what usually works on men, right? Or am I doing this wrong?"

Charlie laughed dryly. "Look, honey, I don't want to cut your wheels off or anything, but you're really barking up the wrong tree."

"No, I'm pretty sure everyone finds breasts amazing; even gay men."

Charlie sat back in his chair, a pen between his finger and tapping it irritably on the desk surface. "You're really trying to get your way into confidential files because of the shape and abundance of your _rack?"_

"Yeah."

"What a compelling argument."

"You don't seem much like a doctor."

"And you would know?"

Storm smiled. "They were the first people I've ever known and I've had many years examining them, seeing what shapes and sizes they come in. You're not one of those sizes."

"You got me; secretary. Now buzz off."

"Is there someone around here that hasn't been hired within the past year?"

"Oh—oh, Storm! My God, what are you doing here?"

Storm and Charlie both looked up to see a curvaceous redheaded nurse making her way toward the two, her brown eyes bugging slightly as they landed on the taller female.

"Jana," Storm smiled in relief.

Jana let out an incredulous little laugh, swinging a quick arm around Storm's neck and hugging her closer before ushering her down the hallway without a second glance toward Charlie who began muttering darkly again.

"What are you doing here? How've you been? I heard you got an apartment the south side of the city."

"I've been fine, I did, and it's not to reminisce over the good memories. I was trying to get my file that the doctors that had been keeping on me for over two years."

"Why?" said Jana, her eyes widening slightly.

"I still can't remember anything beforehand, so I'm attempting to sweep over the past three years, see if anything can help me."

"Does it scare you? I mean, going on for so long without knowing who you were before?"

"It used to. I've had time to gather the bits that build my personality. Though it took me three years to discover I hate sprinkles on vanilla ice cream."

Jana gave her a timid smile. "I've actually missed you a lot. What have you been up to?"

"Working up to earning my GED and then enrolling in a college, preferably somewhere by the coast."

"What are you interested in studying?"

"Law."

"Not that we're supposed to have favorites—but well, yeah, you were my favorite patient. Lately I've been dealing with this girl who keeps on going about the end of the world, something about breaking sixty-six seals in order to free Lucifer." Jana rolled her eyes and laughed in a way that made it seem she was expecting Storm to join. When she didn't, Jana's chortle faded off awkwardly.

"Who's this girl?" Storm asked.

"Well, um, she actually escaped. The other night," Jana explained, inclining her head closer so a doctor nearby wouldn't hear them. "She was absolutely bonkers. Schizophrenia. We had FBI here not too—" She paused, eyes widening again as though she had just remembered something. "Storm, you're not in any trouble are you?"

"Should I be?"

"No, it's just—the two men that were here early this morning—the FBI—they asked after you. Well, one of them did."

Storm frowned. "The FBI were asking about me?"

"They didn't question me much," Jana shrugged, "Just asked if there was someone called Storm admitted in this hospital and I told them you were dismissed a year ago. That's it. Didn't even ask for your last name."

"What did these men look like?"

Jana considered. "Like—well, they were both really hot." She giggled. "Kind of every girls' fantasy of a Law Enforcement man to look like. One was really tall, kinda shaggy hair. The other—I don't know how to describe them, really. They didn't look like cops, that's for sure."

Her gaze wavered for a few moments above Jana's head, her eyebrows coming together as she softly closed her eyes. _As far as I know the Law has no reason to come looking for me, unless it's somehow related to my life before. But if that were true, they would have asked more about me rather than simply inquire if I was still admitted here and then leave. _

"Storm?"

Storm opened her eyes. "I don't think it's anything to worry about."

"Alright," said Jana, somewhat skeptically, "Anyway, I can help you with those files you need. You really think looking over doctor's notes over the past three years will help you?"

"It's not just prior to the three years that I have trouble remembering," Storm admitted solemnly, "In general, everything is fuzzy. I have difficulty remembering small things, even things that happened the previous day." Jana's face fell into silent sympathy. "Thank you for helping me."

.

It was late evening by the time Storm returned to her apartment in the lonely, slightly shabby building that sat on the bad part of the city. The red curtains on the balcony door were drawn and with the beam of the sunset streaming through them made a ruby-red almost magenta coloring in the small one-bedroom apartment.

Almost on every inch of the brick walls there were either pencil sketches or newspaper articles. Many of the drawings consisted mainly of birds Storm had made while sitting on the balcony and observing the many that sat on the railing or bird house. The cutout newspaper articles however were almost completely yellow from how often Storm had gone over it with a highlighter, often the title having to do with mysterious murders, kidnaps, or just odd news in general.

She entered the kitchen with the many toppling paper bags of groceries in her hands, kicking the fridge door open and placing everything in the correct area. After grabbing a small bag of Cheetos and making herself some green tea, she went out onto the balcony to refill the bird feeder, watched the sunset for a few minutes, and then went back inside.

Her desk that sat next to the worn out black leather couch in the living room was littered with dried tea bags, folded up pieces of paper, and rough sketches that Storm knew she would never finish. She used two hands to brush aside all of the trash into the already overflowing garbage beside the desk, heaving her bag into her lap and taking out the two manila envelopes, one labeled, 'Storm Walker' and the other, 'Anna Milton.' She had made sure Jana's gaze was steered clear as she slipped Anna's file swiftly into her bag back at the hospital.

Storm drank deeply from her tea as she opened Anna's file, skipping over the basic info until she read the lines 'Reported seeing what she called demons with black eyes. Recently has told the doctors that voices she says are angels are talking of a woman named Lilith releasing the Devil from Hell.' Connected to this was a line that led to a small scribbled note, 'Anna's father was a church deacon—obvious signs of supreme religious influence.'

Storm pressed the tip of her middle finger in the center of her right temple where a sharp pain suddenly started. These pains often occurred, usually at random but the doctor had still prescribed her pain medications even if she insisted that any sort of medical supplement had no effect on her, not even caffeine.

'_Castiel and Uriel—looking for the Anna girl. Wonder if . . . Winchesters . . . as usual.'_

Storm pressed harder onto her temple, closing her eyes briefly. If Storm could find this Anna girl, who was evidently more than just some schizophrenic, maybe she could explain that they had several things in common.

Storm stood up, finishing her mug of tea and absently placing it in the sink in the kitchen.

If Storm had ever told her doctors that she was hearing voices every now and again, they would have never dismissed her. Now she only dealt with weekly therapy sessions, some of which Dr. Pammelton attempted a deep hypnosis, but every time they got potentially close to obtaining one of Storm's memories, she would break out into a violent seizure and get a nosebleed. So obviously the doc decided against it.

Barely paying attention to her actions, she sat back down at her desk and bumped a book off of it. She bent down to retrieve it, almost putting it away again before her eyes grazed the cover.

_The Complete Book of Northern California Birds._

The book had been so frequently used that the cover did not entirely close all the way anymore. She opened it at random, landing on a page that listed all the info about, very coincidentally, a bird called Anna's Hummingbird.

Why had she kept it for all these years, and so closely? For one, she knew it front to back and could revise almost any paragraph from any page.

_Winchester . . . Winchester . . . that name rings a friendly bell. I have an image of a face but . . . who **is **it?_

Storm pushed aside Anna's file, pulling up her own and turning immediately to the front page.

'Subject's age is unknown, approximately 18-24, White(?) Hair, Green eyes, Caucasian, 127 Pounds, Suffers from complete amnesia . . .' Aha. 'Found around eight pm on October 21st, 2005 by Stanford student, Sam Winchester. Has never met victim prior to this event.'

All it took was the name and Storm remembered everything from that night—almost everything. Sam Winchester, the one with the pretty-haired girlfriend and studied law at Stanford University. He had bought her a book, _this _book that she held in her hands. He said he had found her in the middle of the road during a roaring storm, which is where he had given her the name she claimed to this very day. She recalled his smile that made his eyes ten times brighter, how when he laughed he got a small crinkle in his nose. He spoke with honesty, care, and friendliness.

Storm sat back in her chair, her loose gaze vaguely planted on the wall in front of her. It wasn't as if she had ever really forgotten about him, moreover that she had not had contact with him once since she said goodbye to him at the hospital in California, which she remembered feeling very sad over. She had tried calling him a few times, but he never picked up. Assuming he had not wanted to speak to her anymore, she gave up and focused on getting better. Though he's always been dimly there in the back of her mind somewhere, waiting to be remembered.

She supposed she could look him up, but what would she even say if he answered? 'Hi, it's been about three years, but I'm that girl you found in the middle of that thunderstorm. Still no memory. How are you?'

Even in Storm's head the words sounded stupid. And in any case, she had no reason to worry over him anymore; she had her own life set up, she was taking classes as the local community college, and was working part-time at a friendly cafe in the center of town.

Of course, there was always the additional 'cases' she took on the side. Storm was no expert and nor did she pretend to be, but after being attacked by a black-eyed woman two years ago, the event had awakened her eyes to something bigger and much darker. With the voices she occasionally heard always speaking of angels, demons, and other creatures Storm had never even heard of, she somehow judged against the theory that she was crazy and did her research instead. The lore she found on most of these creatures begged more of her curiosity and when she could, she found cases in the paper to see if it led to anything demonic. Storm was never really good at this considering she neither had experience in this matter or physical training, but she knew these things were dangerous and all she wanted to do was help. Though she admitted tracking down demons and other various creatures was not a habit anyone should have if they wished to hold onto a normal lifestyle.

But this Anna girl—if she could also hear voices, maybe she had some answers to the questions Storm had been asking herself for three years.

Storm perused Anna's file further into the night, long enough for her to drink four more mugs of green tea and that a pile of ashes lay on the desk's surface from all the rose incense Storm had been burning. Storm only slept three hours a night and never once woke up feeling unrefreshed or not fully rested.

_If I was a scared, vulnerable, escaped patient who listened to voices, where would I hide? Where would I feel safest? Anna was apart of the town church—as a heavy Christian, you would think that would be your safe haven._

Storm stood up, quickly scribbling down the address on the church that was noted on the file, grabbed her jacket and purse and then left the apartment.

.

_' . . . Me and you, and you and me; no matter how they toss the dice, it had to be; the only one for me is you, and you for me; so happy together,' _sang the radio, but Dean mutely turned the knob to silence it.

The soft purr of the Impala's engine came to stop as Dean and Sam parked outside of the beautiful stone church. Through the window, Sam suddenly spotted what seemed to be a figure hurriedly walking up some stairs. He pointed this out to Dean and he nodded, retrieving his silver pistol from the inner pocket of his jacket as the pair exited the car.

Inside the church was dark, cold, and the brothers' footsteps were very pronounced in the building that reeked of apparent vacancy. The magnificent stained windows of holy figures still glimmered even if there was no sun outside to stream through them.

Struggling to adjust to the darkness, Sam brought out his flashlight, its beam trailing over the many empty wooden benches.

"Looked like whoever that person was headed upstairs to the attic," said Dean, glancing at Sam. "Guess they spotted us."

"Anna?" called Sam.

"Yeah, that'll work."

The brothers edged closer to the narrow wooden staircase, Sam continuing to speak, "We're not here to hurt you. We want to help. My name is Sam Winch—"

Somewhere from behind, and it certainly wasn't Dean, finished the sentence for him. "Winchester?"

The brothers swiftly turned, directing the light of their flashlights in the area where the voice had sounded.

"Anna?" Dean said.

The girl didn't flinch as Sam shone the light directly in her face; she appeared to be too busy trying to catch sight of the flashlight holder. She wasn't Anna, and at first Sam wondered how he knew this considered he had never laid eyes on the girl, but he realized it was because he had already met the one that stood before him.

She was frowning, a mix of incredulity and alarm stitched into every feature of her pale face. Sam quickly lowered the flashlight, his heart abruptly hammering hard in his chest.

"Storm?" he breathed.

There was an almost alarming change of appearance for her since had seen her last, or maybe it had just been so long that he had truly forgotten when she looked like. Her most memorable trait of youth was gone. Was it because she didn't open her eyes as much, creating a strange illusion of maturity? He had only seen her in a hospital gown, and the black leather jacket colliding with her now-long strands of white hair left off a more roguish impression. When Sam had met her, her hair had been shoulder length, now it came down to the middle of her breasts and had a sort of layered trim. Her fringe bangs worked the job of shaping her heart-shaped face to appear older. If it wasn't for her trademark hair color, Sam had a feeling he wouldn't have recognized her.

Dean was looking between the two, apparently not sure whether to speak or not. Storm's eyes locked with Sam's who felt like his tongue had been replaced by a wet sponge. She heaved a small, fluttering sigh as if she were about to make a speech in front of a crowd. To Sam's amazement, she smiled.

"Hello, Sam Winchester."

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I love all kinds of feedback, advice, or even questions, so don't hesitate to throw any of them. I would be very happy to hear what you think so far!**

**Thanks for reading!**


	3. The Secrets of Heaven

_-Three-_

The Secrets of Heaven

Sam's fingers felt as if they were melted into the handle of his flashlight, his knuckles turning slightly numb from the ferocity of his grip. As his eyes flashed skeptically several times over Storm's face, as if doubting her presence at all, his jaw finally released and a short breath shot from his nostrils.

"Storm—I—how are you—why are you here? How did you—" Sam couldn't stop the explosion of inquiries falling from his tongue, but he cut himself off as his brother gave him a narrow look.

"Uh, maybe you want some paper to write your monologue, that why she knows which question to answer first?" said Dean, looking back at Storm with slightly narrowed brows. "So—you're Storm. Nice hair."

Storm looked at the unfamiliar man.

"Thank you. I grew it myself."

Dean appeared unable to make up his mind on whether or not she was joking. In his confusion, he gave an awkward smile that merely looked as though he had a bad toothache.

"How did you find us?" Sam said, marginally recovering himself.

Storm's silence made Sam frown. She was staring at him in confusion and slight wariness and he could tell she was thinking hard on something. He watched as her eyes wavered on the enormous stained window that was to her left, on it was the symbol of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. The gleam of the colored glass gave Storm's hair a very vague hint of pink. She met his eyes again. "I was never looking for you," she said at last, quietly. "I've lived in this town for the past three years. What are _you _doing here?"

"Um . . ."

This was too odd. Out of all places, out of all times . . . Sam never expected to see Storm ever again, much less three years later in an old church while on the hunt for a girl who recently broke out of a hospital. He felt a little lightheaded but more in control of himself. He and his brother exchanged the 'What kind of excuse do we give for this one' look.

"What are you doing here, Storm?" he eventually asked.

"Maybe—something to do with why you were at the hospital early this morning, asking about the Anna girl. I thought you were becoming a lawyer, Sam? What made you go down the fed field?"

Sam wasn't sure what to make of Storm's expression; her eyes neither wavered or blinked the entire time she looked at him, and the long-distance familiar feeling of having his privacy prodded by her stare returned. He had forgotten how she did that.

"Hang on, how the hell would you know about that?" said Dean, his eyes narrowed as he took a single step toward Storm whose still gaze shifted from the youngest to oldest.

"As I visited the hospital this morning, my old nurse Jana said two hot FBI agents came asking about Anna, and then about myself, and then I come here to find you in the building I believe her to be in, calling out Anna's name."

A small silence fell, and Sam was sure all of their eyes flickered to the ceiling where the attic was.

"Two hot FBI agents, huh?" said Dean with a small smirk, doing a little sardonic bounce on the balls of his feet. "Well, I'm flattered, sweetheart, but we're on the job right now and we don't really have time for reunions or explanations so it's probably best you stay out of the way while we—"

"Why are you looking for Anna, Storm?" Sam interrupted, earning another look from Dean.

"I'll answer that if you do," she said, a knowing grin spreading along her lips. He knew she knew that neither of the brothers were at leisure to reveal their intentions, so he just nodded his submission.

"Like I said," said Dean with a bite of irritability in his tone, jerking his head up the stairs, "we don't really have time for all this. We got a scared little escaped patient who probably thinks we're all plannin' her death."

"I need to speak with Anna," said Storm.

"Well get in line."

Sam wanted to further question Storm—not just why she had come to be here, her interest in Anna, but just _how _she was. Had she remembered anything? What had she been up to? He wanted to apologize for not talking to her once since they had said goodbye in that hospital, but the seriousness of the situation outweighed his trivial desires. There would be time later—well, hopefully.

"Hey, hang on," said Dean, holding up a hand to stop Storm from walking up the steps. "We're doin' work here. You need to leave. You'll just get in the way."

"Dean—" said Sam quickly, but Storm was already countering back at Dean with slightly raised brows.

"I promise the only thing getting in the way will be my perky boobs, which you can hardly complain about. Excuse me." She looked at Sam, winked, and then continued up the stairs, white hair bobbing about her shoulders.

Sam stood there, torn between exasperation with the situation, and amusement at the look on Dean's face.

"Come on," said Sam in a 'just let it go' voice.

"Sam—"

"I know her, alright?"

"_Knew _her, for what, like a week?"

Sam pretended not to have heard as he followed behind Storm's footsteps until they reached the cluttered attic where another magnificent window was placed at the back of the room. Storm waited for them, looking around and glancing at Sam as he approached her side. He wondered if there was possibly anything she could know about Anna and why there were so many demons out to catch her alive. Something told Sam the reason she was looking for her had nothing to do with wanting to exchange gossip or paint nails together. Curiosity burdened heavy in his chest as he gazed absently at the side of her head, and it took a lot of effort not to allow the billion questions explode from his mouth.

Storm's eyes flickered to the gun that was held in Sam's hand and he hastily stashed it away. "Anna?" he called. An elongated shadow proved someone was hiding behind some stacked boxes. He motioned Dean to lower his gun which he did. "We're not gonna hurt you. We're here to help. My name is Sam. This is my brother, Dean. And, um . . ."

He looked at Storm who smiled wearily back. "I didn't know you had a brother."

Before he could reply, a small voice said, "Sam? Not Sam Winchester?"

"Uh, yeah," said Sam, frowning. A girl emerged, tall, thin, with waves of dark red hair and heavily lidded dark blue eyes which were planted on Dean.

"And you're Dean? _The _Dean?"

Dean looked a little taken aback, but gave an awry smile with a nervous glance at Storm. "Well, yeah. _The _Dean, I guess."

"It really is you. Oh, my _God. _The angels talk about you. You were in Hell, but Castiel dragged you out, and some of them think you can help us. And some of them don't like you at all. They talk about you all the time, lately. I feel like I know you."

There was an extremely long silence in which Storm slowly turned to face Dean who now had her undivided attention. Sam's fingers curled anxiously, he and Dean exchanging a sharp expression and he saw his confusion and apprehension mirror back at him. However, Storm didn't say anything like Sam thought she would, but instead turned back to Anna who was looking at the white-haired girl as if she had only just noticed her.

"You listen to angels?" said Storm.

"I—" Anna was looking at Storm though slightly squinted eyes, as if trying to make out a blurry watercolor. "I know you."

"I don't," said Storm shortly and Anna's gaze quivered.

"Does anyone know what's going on here?" said Dean.

"Storm—" said Sam, but Anna spoke over them, still talking to Storm.

"You can hear them, can't you?" she said quietly.

Storm didn't answer.

"So, um, does this mean there's more than one chick who is tunin' into the angel radio?" said Dean, glancing around the group for some confirmation, looking thoroughly confused.

Sam's brain pulled him back into the sudden memory of driving through that blinding storm, of him leaning forward in his seat and squinting his eyes to see the road and how a flash of lightning revealed what looked like someone falling from the sky. Had that really happened? It was so long ago, it was difficult to recover all the pieces.

Why was Storm here, _now? _And was she honestly listening into the same voices, the same angel voices, as Anna? If so, what did that mean?

"I don't hear anyone that frequently," said Storm, more to herself. "I've haven't heard the name Sam Winchester since three years ago when I met you, and the first time I heard Dean Winchester—"

"September 18th," interrupted Anna.

"Day I got outta Hell," said Dean morosely.

"'Dean Winchester is saved,'" Storm and Anna finished together and Anna added, "Clear as day."

Storm paused, looking over her shoulder at Dean and Sam. "I'm guessing you two aren't cops."

Despite the situation, Sam gave a very weak smile.

"So—the both of you," said Dean, holding up two fingers to the two girls, "have a direct connection to the upstairs crowd, but the ghoulies only know about one of you. Least we know why the demons want you so badly," he added to Anna. "They get a hold you, they can hear everything the other side's cookin'. You're 1-900-Angel."

"Storm, how long has this been going on for you?" Sam asked and she looked at him.

"I don't—remember," she said, her voice distant as she bullied her brain into diving into the last three years in attempt to retrieve the memory, yet trying to recall anything was like trying to hit a TV that had bad reception in attempt to reach a channel. "Not until after I was admitted into the hospital, I think."

"And you still can't remember anything prior to three years ago?'

"No."

"Great," said Dean. "Well, we can—" He cut himself off as another pair of rushed footsteps were heard from the stairs, the next moment Ruby materializing, walking brusquely toward them.

"You got the girl. Good. Let's go." She paused and she and Storm's gazes found each other. Ruby frowned. "Who the hell is she?"

There was something wrong with the way Storm was portraying the stranger's face. First it was normal, but something seemed to be strained beneath the skin of her face and all Storm could do was stare at the brunette with the cold, dark eyes that were planted on her with a hollow expression.

"She's not—" Ruby paused, looking up at Sam who narrowed his eyes. He had the vague suspicion that Ruby was sensing something off Storm, but was in too much of a rush to say anything. "Right, we have to go."

"Her face!" Anna said.

"It's okay; she's here to help," Sam assured her.

"Yeah, don't be so sure," said Dean.

"We've got to hurry," said Ruby.

"What are we hurrying from?" said Storm.

"A demon's coming—big-timer."

"Well, that's pretty convenient," snarled Dean. "Showing up right when we find the girl with some bigwig on your tail?"

"I didn't bring him here; you did."

"What?"

"He followed you here from Anna's house. We got to go now."

"Dean . . ." said Sam slowly, pointing up at an angel statue where blood was pouring from the eyes, as if crying.

"Too late, he's already here," said Ruby.

Out of instinct, Sam grabbed Anna's forearm, looking for a place to hide her, but his eyes fell instead upon Storm's. There was a strange moment, and Sam wasn't sure what the cause of it was, but incredibly spontaneously, Sam had realized with a vague feeling of an anchor settling in his stomach that Storm had definitely changed. He remembered her as the girl with the wide youthful eyes that loved to draw birds and play Uno with him, but hiding in the corners of her dark green eyes were shadows that had not been there before.

"_Sam?" _said Dean anxiously and Sam was knocked out of his thoughts.

He had an idea, but he wasn't sure how he felt suggesting it when he and Storm had only reunited not twenty minutes ago. Amazingly though, she seemed to catch what was on his mind.

"I'll take her," said Storm.

"Can you—are you sure?"

"I don't know exactly what you guys are or what you do, but it sounds to me like you're about to make a standoff. I'm no good at fighting but I can help; I'll get Anna out of here. I'll keep her safe." Storm failed to mention how exactly she was planning on keeping her safe should they come across a demon, but she figured it was better to take their chances with running rather than stay here where there was about to be an attack.

They held eye-contact and Sam wasn't sure why it was so easy to believe her words. Something about the soothing tone she used made him feel as if she had everything under control. His lips pressed together.

"Be careful," he said.

"_You _be careful, Sam Winchester. I can already tell I still like you, so I'd rather you be less dead next time I see you."

She took Anna's hand, grasping it tightly before turning and heading for the fire escape before Sam could familiarize with the youthful simplicity in which she spoke that he had forgotten how much he missed.

.

"Didn't you bring a car?" Anna asked as the girls took a moment to catch their breath once they put some ground between them and the church.

"Took a bus," said Storm, looking up and down the deserted road and casting an anxious look over her shoulder at the attic window of the church. She still grasped Anna's hand which was slightly clammy with sweat, making their hold harder to maintain as they half-jogged down the sidewalk.

Where was a place she could safely hide Anna? Nowhere around here, and as much as she didn't want to leave Sam and the other one to deal what there was to deal with, her current job was to help Anna.

Storm's eyes registered the silhouette of a car parked not too far away. It was a black, older fashioned car and appeared to be empty. The door was unlocked and she indicated for Anna to get in the passenger side. There were no keys but when Storm opened the glove compartment a heap full of cell phones and a pistol fell onto the ground. She picked it up, examining the gleam of silver that reflected in the nearby street lamp. There was no doubt this was the boys' car.

Storm, although having no gun training at all, stashed the gun in her belt loop

"No keys?" Anna said and Storm shook her head, squinting her eyes in the darkness as she leaned forward, examining the area under the steering wheel and seeing how sturdy it was.

"Can you find a Phillips head screwdriver anywhere?" asked Storm.

"You're going to hot wire the car?" Anna questioned skeptically. "Have you done it before?"

"Once. The job is simple enough but I can barely see anything."

As it turned out, in the trunk that was stashed high with weapons that the girls did an extraordinary job of disregarding, they found a toolbox and flashlight. As the seconds ticked by, Storm managed to remove the steering column and was working at the wires as Anna illuminated the area with the flashlight.

"C'mon," Storm murmured as she nudged the two red wires together, her back aching from leaning over for awhile. She closed her eyes briefly, sliding her tongue over the bump of her lower lip. There was a jolt and the sound of an engine roaring to life and Storm's eyes shot open in surprise.

"You got it!" Anna said.

Storm sat up straight in the leather seat. "Seatbelt," she reminded Anna.

Anna stared. "We're being chased by demons."

"All the more reason to be safe," she said, but before she could put the car in 'drive' there was the sound of a window crashing and both of the girls turned just and time to see two figures falling from the attic window and landing hard in the bushes that hugged the church's building. Storm didn't hesitate in making a sharp U-turn toward the two men who were staggering to their feet and looking up as Storm braked before them, rolling down the window.

"You're—" the one called Dean stuttered, hurrying forward and grasping his shoulder, looking up and down at the car, apparently at a loss for words.

"Get in," said Storm.

"Uh-uh, no way!" said Dean and Storm narrowed her eyes. "_What the hell did you do to my car!?"_

"Dean!" said Sam angrily, who was already getting in the backseat.

Dean let out a weak sort of moan before he hurled himself in the backseat and Storm nearly floored it, the tires screeching on the pavement as they took off down the road, running a stop sign or two.

"Watch it!" scathed Dean whose head popped from the backseat. "Who the hell taught you how to drive?"

"No one. I've only driven once before."

Dean went pale. "Oh God."

"I know what I'm doing. Where are we heading?"

"We have to think about something here," said Sam edgily, leaning forward too and looking at Storm's side profile as she made a jerky stop at a red light. "This guy—whoever he was. You called him Alastair?" he asked Dean and Dean nodded with his jaw clenched. "He's going to expect Anna to be with us so we can't guarantee that you'll be completely safe with us. But he doesn't know you, Storm."

"So, we split up like every bad horror movie out there?" Dean said who was feeling very edgy being behind the driver's seat opposed to in it.

"Alastair could be following us now, Dean." He turned to Storm who was chewing on her bottom lip, frowning at the open road with her fingers drumming softly on the thin steering wheel.

"I have an apartment on the south side of the city that Anna and I can go to 'till the storm clears," said Storm.

"You must have a lot of fun making puns with your name," grumbled Dean.

"I do."

.

"You don't remember anything ever strange happening to you in your childhood?" Storm asked Anna as she handed her a steaming mug of green tea before sitting beside her on the couch in Storm's living room.

"My childhood was normal," said Anna, bringing the mug to her lips but not drinking. She frowned at Storm. "I just—I swear I know you."

"I can't say the same. I've never seen your face before."

"No, it's not like we've met before—at least I don't think so. But how would you know if you can't remember anything before three years ago?"

"I wouldn't," said Storm, drinking deeply from her tea which burned the roof of her mouth, but she was too impatient to let it cool down.

"I've never heard the name Storm before—up there, I mean."

"I don't know why the angels would be talking about me, and in any case, the name was given to me. No idea who I was before. No one ever answered to the pictures the hospital sent out of me."

"So you were stuck in a mental hospital for three years?"

"Two years. Once I had a knack for independence and could prove I could handle a job, schoolwork, and paying bills they decided to let me go and lead my own life." Storm leaned back with her head on the arm of the couch, balancing the hot mug on her stomach.

"But you hear voices? Angel voices?"

"Not a lot."

"What made you decide that you weren't just crazy and they were really angels?"

"For the same reason you did, I guess."

Anna fell silent. Evidently just for something to do, she at last took a sip from her tea. She glanced around the walls where all the sketchings were hung. "You draw?"

"I used to," said Storm, feeling like she was sounding too morose and her lips curved upward in a forced smile.

"They're nice. You like birds?"

"I do."

Another pause. "What should we do until they give the word?" Anna asked.

"Sam said he would call us when he has a plan. Until then, it's pretty late. Do you sleep?" Storm only asked this strange inquiry because she herself only slept a few hours a night, and seeing as she and Anna had quite a few similarities, she wasn't sure what to expect.

Anna frowned, giving a hesitant nod.

"You can sleep in my bed if you want. I'll take the couch. Or I have an old deck of Uno cards if you want to play."

There was a quick occurrence of knocks on the door and both of the girls looked up. Setting her mug of tea aside, Storm got to her feet and approached the door, Anna right behind her. She glimpsed in the peephole, hesitating with her fingers on the cold doorknob. She opened the door and the brunette from earlier strode in.

"Good to see you two haven't been obliterated," she said.

"I've been getting better at it," said Storm. "Who're you?"

"Friend of Dean and Sam," said the girl. "Name is Ruby. Look, we can get friendly once we get out of the open where you're ringing the dinner bell for demons. The guys are waiting for us at a safe house in the woods."

It was happening again; the girl's face looked to be disfiguring, but the next moment it was quite normal. Anna on the other hand, was looking at Ruby with wide eyes though was keeping quiet.

Ruby appeared to have sensed Storm's hesitance.

"Look, I don't know who you are or how you got into the picture—I don't even know _what _you are—but somehow you're involved now and your life is in just as much danger as Anna here if we don't get moving. You hear me?"

"I hear you."

"I think it's okay, Storm," said Anna.

"Great," said Ruby sarcastically. "We shouldn't make the brothers wait any longer."

.

Dean was pacing back and forth as Sam sat on the couch with his arms folded in his lap, watching his brother tentatively.

"Shoulda gone with her," said Dean.

"Look, Dean, I told you; Ruby saved my life. We can trust her. They'll be here soon."

"Okay, yeah, she saved your life—after screwin' and manipulating you. Guess I'll just friggin' bite my breath then." Dean stopped pacing, folding his arms over his chest and frowning into the corner of the room. "Do you think it's a little weird this Storm girl comin' in all of a sudden, just happening to hear the same voices as Anna?"

"It's weird, definitely," Sam nodded, "But Storm's not any danger to us, Dean. I don't think she could be if she wanted to."

"Wonder why the demons know about Anna and not her?"

"I don't know. She's definitely kept more of a low profile, and she says she doesn't hear voices very often."

"Hearin' voices," said Dean with a small chuckle, shaking his head slightly. "You know, just _once _I'd like a case that has somethin' to do with fluffy bunnies or walkin' old ladies across the street."

Sam grinned a little. "You don't mean that, do you?"

"Not one bit."

The door opened and the three girls walked in.

"Don't think we were followed, but better to be on our guard just in case," said Ruby as Anna shut the door behind them.

"Glad you could make it," said Dean.

"Anna, Storm—are you both okay?" asked Sam.

"Okay and ready to rumble," said Storm. They locked gazes and for what felt like the hundredth time, Sam stared at her as if not quite sure to believe she was really standing in front of him. It was hard to tell how he felt about it. Happy, he supposed, but he wished it was under better circumstances. He wondered if she was angry with him at all for failing to contact her.

"I think I'm alright, too," said Anna leisurely, her voice breaking Sam and Storm's gaze. She looked at Ruby. "Ruby's not like other demons. Thank you for helping us."

"Yeah, I hear she's been doin' that a lot lately," said Dean slowly. "I guess I . . . you know."

Ruby raised her eyebrows at him. "What?"

"I guess I owe you . . . for Sam, and I just wanted . . . you know . . ."

"Don't strain yourself."

"Okay then. Is the moment over?" Ruby nodded. "Good, 'cause that was awkward."

"Sam," said Anna, "do you think it's be safe for me to make a quick call? My parents must be freaked."

Sam and Dean looked at each other with the same darkened expression. It was hours ago before heading to the church when they had gone to Anna's house only to find both Mr. and Mrs. Milton lying dead on the kitchen floor. Sam wet his lips.

"Uh . . ."

"What?" said Anna.

"Anna, um . . . your parents . . ."

Anna's eyes flashed. "What about them?"

"Look, I'm sorry . . ."

"No, they're—they're not . . ."

"Anna, I'm sorry."

"Why is this happening to me?"

"I don't know," replied Sam hopelessly.

Anna collapsed more than sat back on the couch, her head bowed for a moment as she pressed her thumb into her forehead. Storm watched her closely with narrowed eyes, her arms folded. She wished there was a way for her to have an idea what she must have been going through, but she had never had any parents, none that she remembered anyway, to lose. She wasn't sure whether to feel grateful for that or not.

The silence scratching at the walls of her ears, Storm met Sam's eyes again briefly before letting her arms fall to her sides and silently walking past the group to enter the other room. Storm didn't know whether she was asking him to follow her or not. Regardless, his heavy footsteps indicated that he wasn't far behind. She found a heavy wooden cart to sit on, her knees touching as she looked up at him.

"Hi," she said.

"Hey," he said tentatively. He paused, finally letting the three words he had been bursting to say drop from his mouth, "How are you?"

She sat up straighter. "Ready to rumble," she repeated.

"I guess I mean how have you been?"

"Not much goes on in a mental hospital, Sam, but the bottom line is—fine. I've been fine." Sam didn't miss the pause between the two words, but he glanced down, not sure he wanted to pry. She shifted a little on the cart, smiling a little as her gaze wandered the shadows of the room. "Your eyes tell me differently, Sam Winchester. You've changed much since I saw you in the hospital."

"Well, a lot of things happened since then."

"You never became a lawyer, then." She was half-joking.

"No, uh, guess it was just never meant to be." Sam leaned against the wall but didn't take his eyes off her.

"How is Jess?"

Storm could tell at once that she had asked a sore-point question. His gaze wavered, almost breaking but still maintaining to hold hers. He breathed in, wetting his lips again and exhaling slowly.

"She, uh . . . she's—" Sam forced his next breath to release the terrible weight of his next words. "She's dead."

Storm was quiet. She was on the brink of asking how, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to know. More so, she wanted much less for Sam to have to tell her. She just asked, "When?"

"Two weeks after I found you, actually."

A stone weighed heavy in Storm's gut. "I liked her."

Sam looked up again, a small, sad smile on his face. "Yeah, I know. She liked you, too."

"Way back when, I drew a picture for her, but I forgot to give it to you. I still remember the one I made you." Storm chuckled in a solemn sort of way.

Sam thought of the folded picture that sat in his breast pocket at this very moment, but for some reason he did not reveal that he still had it. "You still draw?"

"Sometimes," she said with a coy smile. "Still not the best at it, but it keeps me sane."

Sam dimly returned the smile, but it flickered. His gaze wandered to the living room where Anna was still sitting on the couch. Her head had resurfaced from its bowed state and she looked calm, but at the same time mortified. He looked back at Storm.

"Look, I'm sorry that you're suddenly involved in all of this. It's our fault."

"I would have been involved whether you were there or not, s'long as I walked up those stairs in the church I would have been involved. You being here is a good thing because I would have no idea how to kill a demon. Is that what you do as a professionalism? Kill demons?"

Sam chuckled, pulling a chair beside her and sitting on it, slightly bent over with his hands together. "You could say that."

"A demon attacked me one time, in the back of an alleyway by the hospital."

"What—?" said Sam, a little taken aback by this sudden slab of information. Did that mean at one point the demons _had _been looking for Storm? "What did you do?"

Sam wasn't expecting an elongated silence from Storm but as she met his eyes, she shook her head gently. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"He cornered me and when he came closer he just—blew up."

Another pause. "Blew up?"

"I remember there were lights flickering, the wind was blowing hard, and right before he grabbed me there was this surge in my body and next thing I know the alley walls were painted in demon guts."

Sam's mouth opened, but he was at a loss. "Guess we'll—have to look into that."

"It's never happened before or after that. I have no idea what it was." She sighed, head tilted back slightly as she gazed at the ceiling, her eyelashes fluttering slightly as she blinked slowly. "I can't exactly say that I was ever expecting to see you again, Sam Winchester—but now that I have, it does feel like all along I knew our paths would cross again, just like I'd hoped they would."

Once again, they found each other's eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't contact you when I said I would. A lot—" he coughed, "a _lot _of stuff happened."

Storm smiled at him, and Sam remembered how her expression transitioned when that happened; the apples of her cheeks became more pronounced, crinkling her green eyes so that a twinkle swam through them. Overall, it just made her look so pretty.

"Stuff. I understand 'stuff'," said said, her nose crinkling. "I don't want you to explain everything now, I can just hope that I'm going to stick around long enough in your life for you to tell me what this stuff is. I want to hear everything."

The corners of Sam's lips twitched uncertainly as Storm got to her feet. _'I hope I'm in your life long enough for you to tell me'. _She made it sound as if she wanted to stick around, and Sam felt a little foolish at how cheerful this made him feel, but not nearly as cheerful as when she leaned forward and gave him a long, close hug that took him slightly by surprise.

Her cheek brushed his, her hair tickling the crook of his neck and he heard the smile in her voice as she spoke next, "I'm glad I got to see you again, Sam Winchester. I meant what I said when I said I would miss you."

And she kissed him on the cheek in the same exact spot she had when they had said goodbye three years previously.

She withdrew, still smiling before standing up straight and turning slowly away from him to return to the living room with the others. Sam sat there for a moment, the tips of his fingers absently touching the spot on his face where her mouth had just been. He lowered his hand, getting to his feet and following Storm.

Dean raised his eyebrows at his younger brother who pretended not to have seen but looked around at the group. He opened his mouth to ask what was next on the agenda, but very suddenly Anna's head snapped up like a fox sensing the hound.

She barely breathed the next words, "They're coming."

Everyone looked at her, Storm's lips parting as the ambiance of the room was suddenly in uproar.

"Back room," said Dean firmly, nodding at Anna. Wind shook the door and Sam was suddenly heeding to Anna again, ushering her into the other room.

"Storm, you should go with her," he told her quickly.

Storm paused, eyes flickering toward the door. She didn't think much of hiding, but whatever was about to burst through the doors she knew she could offer little aid. With her lips pursed, she gave a grudging nod and followed after Anna.

"Get in the closet," she told her.

"I—what about you?"

Storm didn't reply, but listened in to the others.

"Where's the knife?" Ruby directed at Dean.

"Yeah . . . about that . . ." They had lost the knife when Sam had stabbed Alastair with it.

"You're kidding."

"Hey, don't look at me," he said, looking at Sam.

"Thanks a lot," Sam said irritably.

"Great. Just peachy. Impeccable timing, guys, really."

The door rattled so fiercely Sam thought the doorknob was going to fly off at any moment. However, before that could happen the door burst violently open. Storm had her back pressed against the wall just as she heard the click of Anna closing the closet door. Her chest was tight as she peered around the corner, seeing two figures walking past the threshold, neither of them she knew.

Both tall, but lacking any similar physical qualities. The one on the right was slightly shorter with tousled black hair and wearing what looked like an ankle-length tan trenchcoat. She could not see his face over the bulk of Dean's shoulder, but the other was bald and dark-skinned, surveying the group with a cool smile.

It felt like electricity was fizzing heavily in Storm's fingertips as she stared at them, somehow knowing at once that they were not demons. Her tongue went dry as she withdrew her face a few inches, looking at the dusty floorboards as she listened in.

"Please tell me you're here to help," said Dean. "We've been having demon issues all day."

"Well I can see that," said one of the two strangers, and Storm imagined it was the one with the cool eyes talking because his cold voice was the one that could equate to it.

"We're here for Anna," the other said in a hoarse, throaty voice that made the hairs on Storm's head nearly depart with her scalp. It wasn't _his _voice exactly that sounded so familiar; she had never heard it before, but the person who spoke with it.

Storm had chanced another glimpse around the corner but Dean was still in the way of the trenchcoated man.

"Here for her like . . . here for her?" said Dean.

"Stop talking. Give her to us," said the other, folding his hands over the wrinkle-less front of his neatly pressed business suit.

"Are you gonna help her?" asked Sam, slightly breathless.

Trenchcoat moved forward, but still Storm was only able to make out half his face. He looked at all of them as he said, "No, she has to die."

Storm remained rooted to the spot, her nails digging so fiercely against the wooden wall that one of them broke.

Sam sounded incredulous as he said, "You want Anna? Why?"

"Out of the way," the taller of the two ordered firmly, taking a step forward, but Dean held up his hands.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, I know she's wiretrapping your angel charts or whatever, but that's no reason to gank her."

"Don't worry; I'll kill her gently."

"You're some heartless sons of bitches, you know that, right?"

"As a matter of fact, we are," said Trenchcoat. "And?"

"And? She's an innocent girl!" said Sam.

"She is far from innocent."

"Whats that supposed to mean?"

"It means she's worse than this abomination that you've been screwing," said the taller, indicating Ruby. "Now give us . . ." but he paused, his eyes suddenly planting on the wall that Storm hid behind as though he could suddenly see her. "What else have you got hidden back there?"

No one said anything.

"They have something back there, Castiel," he continued darkly and Storm stood up as slowly as her spine would permit, glancing very carefully over her shoulder at the closet that was still closed. "More than one person. I can sense it. I can smell it."

"Keep your dirty nose out of other people's business," warned Dean.

"Castiel—something very interesting is going on. I think the Winchesters have more than one dirty secret. Who else are you hiding?"

"No one," said Sam.

"It's not like you two can stop us from finding out." Ruby's body suddenly flew through the air and hit the wall hard and Dean attacked Uriel.

"Cas," pleaded Sam, "stop this. Please."

But as the angel's fingers came in touch with Sam's forehead, consciousness drained from him and he fell hard onto the floor.

Storm could no longer stand idly by. She stood up straighter, glancing once more around the wall just in time to see the dark-skinned man throw a very powerful punch to Dean's face. She saw Sam lying on the floor unconscious and her angry eyes lifted to the two angels.

The lights began to flicker and this little action caused a pause in the heat of the battle. Storm's face screwed up in a mingle of triumph and confusion, up until the bulb in the lamp exploded and darkness fell in the room.

"What is this?" said Uriel, his clenched fist falling to his side. Dean rubbed his sore jaw, scrambling to his feet and not quite glancing behind him at Storm, but his eyes definitely wavered in her direction.

"Uriel," the one called Castiel said in a very low tone, his body quite still as the angel's eyes scanned the darkness. "Do you recognize it?"

"I'm not sure. How could it be with the Winchesters? There was no saying where it would have fallen, but the possibility of it being in this dimension was judged against."

"What the hell are you two goin' on about?" Dean growled.

"Only one way to find out," said Uriel, lifting a hand as if about to choke someone. The wall beside Storm collapsed as easy if it were sand. She bolted out of the way, but her ankle hit a chair. She nearly stumbled, but caught her balance before hitting the floor. The dust of the collapsed wall was thick and stung Storm's lungs as she breathed in heavily, blinking to aid her watering eyes.

As the dust dispersed, the first pair of eyes that were to meet Storm's were of bright blue, both crinkled under the severity of the angel's frown. Storm felt as if a tornado was going through the room though everything was quite still. It was as though Castiel's eyes had sucked every potential breath she could inhale, but she remained quite immobile.

"Castiel," said Uriel slowly and Storm didn't like that grin that was spreading along his lips. "You Winchesters just _have _to be involved in everything, don't you?" He let out a bark of mad, tirumphant laughter.

Storm couldn't hear her thoughts, much less listen to whatever this other angel was saying. For a moment, Storm had forgotten she was in a standoff of her life, forgot that she was in a dingy cabin in the middle of the woods, and just plain out forgot that she even had legs that supported her numb body.

Flickering like a bad reception, for a moment she saw herself—from Castiel's perspective?—Storm standing there with her white hair tossed about wildly and eyes wide as they fixed on the angel.

There was a vision of a wide, green grassy field and the sound of tweeting, the feeling of just drinking down ice-cold water, but then it was gone and Storm returned to her body.

"Castiel," she said at last.

A curtain of unfathomable uncertainty fell over the angel's face. When his lips opened, he only said half a word, "Athed—" before there was a a light like white lightning that both angels were engulfed in and Storm blinked. Castiel and Uriel were gone.

"What the . . . ?" said Dean, looking from Storm to behind her where Anna was standing with her forearms drenched in her own blood. "Anna? Anna!"

Storm saw that she had drawn sigils in a mirror with her own blood, and without knowing how she knew it, Storm knew that this was the reason the angels had been forced out.

"Are they—are they gone?" said Anna weakly.

Storm's knees felt weak but she swallowed, forcing herself to walk back into the living room and allow Dean to tend to Anna. Her eyes fell on Ruby who was was sitting beside Sam who was stirring.

"You want to tell us what the hell just happened?" she demanded of Storm. "You attacked the light bulbs and then was completely absent for a few seconds there."

Storm had never felt so exhausted. Her eyes swept quickly over Sam, doing a quick search for any injuries, but his eyes were flickering open. Her face was the first thing his gaze found.

"What happened?" he asked her gruffly, sitting up straight and rubbing the side of his hip which had taken most of his fall.

Storm stood there, eyes casting upward to the ceiling, shaking her head mutely. Her pained legs begged her to sit down, but she felt if she rested for a second she might lose consciousness and she was doing everything to try and recollect what had just happened.

What she had seen, a grassy field of sorts and birds surrounding her as if she was in the eye of a hurricane—whatever it was, there was a sharp, cold, solid feeling in Storm's gut that this was a memory, and something about meeting the blue-eyes of that angel allowed her to see it.

* * *

**I really hope this chapter wasn't too long but unfortunately I have a bad habit of not being able to stop writing something once I'm on a roll.**

**I would love to hear what you think of Storm so far, the plot, if you have any predictions, or just anything else. It would be much appreciated :]**

**I hope you all are having a great summer, if you're out yet, and thanks so much for reading! Also, sorry for the bunch of errors seeing as I terrible at editing.**


	4. Dirty Birds Aren't Allowed Recollection

_-Four-_

Dirty Birds Aren't Allowed Recollection

Storm grimaced in response to the pain, raising her bleeding index finger eye-level, watching the small dot of scarlet substance slip out from the thin, tiny wound. She glanced down at the piece of paper that had committed the crime, watching the drop of blood fall heavily down from the tip of her finger onto the paper. She surveyed the page absorbing the blood, the explosion of red against the contrast of white spreading like veins.

Storm curled her legs against her body as she sat on the moth-eaten couch, punching the pillow that she leaned back on which emitted a soft cloud of dust. As she sucked her bleeding finger, she gazed around at the piles of yellowing papers and leather-bound books which were giving off a vague musty odor which was oddly reminded Storm of home. Along the wall were several different home phones all with different tape labels, such as FED Marshall, FBI, CDC, Police, and Health Debt. Whoever the man was that lived here, Bobby, was certainly no kindly old uncle who watched football on TV or had evening barbeque's every Friday.

The lights were dim but she was still able to make out the heading on the page of the open book that sat on her lap. The droplet of blood that had almost completely sunk in the paper now was very close to the calligraphic 'C' of the name 'Castiel'. Beneath it was a list and brief history that was all very biblical and didn't sate the thirst of knowledge Storm had for the angel. He was the angel of Thursday, understanding, temperance, new changes, and travel which of course did nothing in explaining the strange moment they had shared when meeting eye-contact.

It wasn't particularly as if she had ever met him before,(at least she didn't think so)but who could she have been prior three years ago to be important enough to be involved with angels? She hadn't forgotten the flashing vision of that field with a taste of serenity that filled her up like drink, which was just as familiar as Castiel, though in completely different ways. The field felt as if it was a piece of whatever life she used to live, as for Castiel—well, there wasn't enough to go on to be sure, but in some odd way she knew him before. Again, not as if they had ever talked, but more so . . . more so . . .

Storm was at a loss.

Her whole hand was planted over her forehead in attempt to harness the migraine-ish headache that had been on and off ever since they left Ruby's safe house nearly twelve hours ago. She couldn't 'hear' anything, but it felt as if someone was driving a drill between her eyebrows, making reading anymore on Castiel all but impossible.

There was a creak of footsteps on the basement stairs and a distraction materialized in the shape of Sam, shuffling through several papers in his hand and glancing from them to look at Storm who had sat up a little straighter.

"Hey," he said. "Feeling anymore awake?"

She had slept the entire drive here in the back of the Impala up until she was being prodded awake by Sam who had smiled a little and pointed out the small dribble of drool on the side of her mouth.

"Yes, I am, thank you. How's Anna?"

"In Bobby's panic room downstairs with Dean, but I think she's okay. Still a little shaken up about her parents, but that's understandable. The walls are drenched in salt so no demon is getting to her."

"Has she been able to explain how she knew those symbols would take care of the angels?"

"No, she said she just—knew," he said with a small shrug. He pursed his lips, eyes scanning over Storm's face with apparent worry stitching onto his expression. "You look a little pale." He moved forward, raising his hand but hesitating the moment he made a gesture as if to raise it to her forehead. She didn't move or say anything, but she didn't drop their gaze either and he took this as an 'okay' to proceed. His hand swept aside her bangs, resting gently on her forehead. He withdrew suddenly. "A little warm."

"I haven't had anything but green tea and Cheetos in the past few twenty-four hours," she admitted with a timid smile. Sam raised his eyebrows a little with a distracted chuckle.

"Oh, well, uh, I'm sure Bobby has something," he said timidly, straightening his spine self-consciously.

"Where's this Bobby?" Storm asked as she got to her feet, her stance more solid seeing as her knees weren't as shaky anymore.

"Not sure, actually. Dean's on the phone with him now. I wanted to go over these papers with him," he said, throwing the file onto the table with a slight nod down at it. Storm recognized it as the one she had taken from the hospital at which she had given to the brothers in attempt to help them with researching Anna.

He opened the fridge and squinted down at all the contents, as if hoping leftover food would miraculously appear so as to avoid cooking. The easiest thing he could find was eggs and bacon which he held up for Storm's examination, mutely asking for approval.

"Sure," she nodded.

"So you're not a vegetarian?" he asked.

"Nope."

He nodded absently, turning on the stove as he heard Storm sit down at the table, a sound occurring as if she were drumming her nails on the surface of it. As he poured an overdose of olive oil into the pan that still had residue of cooked eggs, she asked, "What else did her file say?"

"Nothing light," he said with a small glance at her over his shoulder. "Um, when she was about—two and a half she got freaked out whenever her dad came close, said something along the lines that he wasn't her real father and that he was going to kill her."

He imagined Storm's eyebrows were raised when she spoke next, "That's—pretty extreme for only being two."

Sam flinched back his hand as a droplet of boiling oil flew out of the pan and attacked him. As he sucked his thumb, he didn't realize Storm had gotten out of her chair to stand beside him, staring down into the pan.

"Well, she saw a kid's shrink and after that, she grew up normally," he explained with a slight shrug.

"Sam Winchester, do you know how to cook?"

His lips tugged upward in a guilty smile as he looked at her. "Uh, I'm trying to act like I can. Is it working?"

"The eggs are burning."

Sam looked down into the pan. Indeed, thick tendrils of smoke were rising from the mess of easy over eggs, the broken yolks bubbling softly in the pile of fizzing oil. When he tried to chisel them out with the spatula, they stubbornly stuck to the surface of the pan, despite the generous amount of oil.

"Uh, sorry. I kind of live on a daily diet of diner food. My culinary skills aren't up to boot," said Sam.

Murmuring swearwords darkly under his breath, he at last gathered the eggs onto a saucer and looked down at them in defeat as he faced Storm who was grinning ear to ear.

"Well, uh, they _started _as over easy. I hope you like scrambled dosed in about a cup of olive oil."

"My favorite."

"No, really you don't have to eat it. They'll probably do more bad to you than good."

"Gimme. I'm preparing my stomach for Sam Winchester's Specially Made Eggs."

Sam did little to fight his grin. "Alright. Let me at least cook the bacon first."

He was a little more fortunate when it came to cooking the bacon, perhaps because he had followed Storm's advice in turning down the temperature. As they sat down at the table, he watched doubtfully as she stabbed the burnt eggs into her mouth, her expression thoughtful as she chewed slowly.

"So, tell me; do they suck?" he said, leaning back in his chair with a light chuckle.

"Y'know," she said, pointing her fork importantly at him, "the cup of olive oil I just ingested almost gives it a very nature-y effect on my taste buds. I can taste the olives on the vines they were picked from."

Sam actually burst out laughing. "Right. Okay. You should definitely give me a 'Chef of the Year' award." He eyed her skeptically as she took another bite. "Seriously, though."

"Seriously, though; they are really bad."

He chuckled softly again but before he could say anything Dean entered the kitchen, snapping his cell phone shut and sniffing the air hopefully.

"Hey, dude," said Sam, gathering the papers in his hands again, "where's Bobby?"

"Uh, the Dominican," he said, eying the bacon that Storm had not yet touched and only granting Sam half a glance. "He says we break anything, we buy it. Hey," he added to Storm, and she didn't miss the lowered tone he used on her. Evidently he had not completely forgiven her for hot wiring the Impala.

"Hi," she said.

"If I could just . . . ?" He was making timid movements toward her plate and nodding down at her food with what he evidently assumed to be a charming smile and Sam rolled his eyes.

"No. This was made specially for me," said Storm, inching her plate away from Dean who's face fell, apparently not expecting the rejection. Sam contained a laugh behind his fingers but automatically straightened his expression as his brother looked at him.

"So he's working a case?" Sam asked airily.

"God, I hope so. Otherwise he's at hedonism in a banana hammock and a trucker cap," said Dean.

Sam stared up at him, grimacing. "Now that's seared into my brain."

"I want to meet this Bobby," said Storm who, amazingly, had finished the entire meal with a smile.

"He'd sure have a hay-day makin' fun of you for your hair and that your name is Storm," said Dean, and then directing at Sam, "So find anythin' new about Anna?"

Sam explained everything he had just said to Storm and Dean basically had the same reaction.

"Alright—so everythin' was normal up until now," said Dean who was now leaning his elbows on the back of one of the dining room chairs. "So what's she hiding?"

"Why don't you just ask me to my face?"

Ruby and Anna had joined the others in the kitchen. Dean shifted on an irritable expression, saying to Ruby, "Nice job watchin' her."

"I'm watching her."

Sam's fingers folded the corners of Anna's file, his eyes unintentionally wavering in Storm's general area, but he made himself look at Anna. "No, you're right, Anna. Is there anything you want to tell us?"

"About what?"

"Well, the angels said you were guilty of something. Why would they say that?"

Anna pulled one of the table chairs toward her, leaning the flat of her palms on the back of it while staring down at Sam defiantly. "You tell me. Tell me why my life has been leveled—why my parents are dead. I don't know, I swear. I would give anything to know."

"Okay then," said Sam after a short pause, meeting Dean's eye. "Then let's find out."

"How?" she said.

"Pamela. She's, uh, sort of a psychic that we know."

"So we have her swing the wonky pendulum and hopefully that'll get you to remember?" said Dean, standing up straighter. His eyes were on Storm. "This could go both ways."

"Hypnosis never worked on me," said Storm. "I just ended up having seizures and one bad headache."

"Okay, yeah, but that was done by the white-coat doctors who didn't major specifically in black mojo," countered Dean. "And I don't mean to state the obvious or anything, but, uh . . . Castiel and Uri seemed to take an interest in you. Think you might be willing to try and figure out why that is?"

"Keyword: try," said Storm. "Yes, I'll try. I'll do anything I can to remember who or what I was before."

"Alright," said Sam after a short pause, bringing out his phone. "I'll make the call."

.

Storm had never met a psychic before, but the way this particular one entered the threshold made it seem as though she owned the place. The black sunglasses indicated her poor sight and Dean was leading her by the arm and into the basement where the others were waiting.

"We're here!" Dean called.

"Pamela, hey!" said Sam as the two reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Sam?" said Pamela. "Sam is that you?"

"Right here."

"Oh. Know how I can tell?" Storm's eyebrows shot upward in unadulterated amusement as Pamela suddenly groped Sam's rear. "This perky little ass of yours. Could bounce a nickel off that thing. Of course I know it's you, grumpy. Same way I know that's a demon," she nodded at Ruby, "and that poor girl's Anna, and that you've been eying my rack."

"Uh . . ."

Sam made an embarrassed fidgeting motion along with an airy chuckle that did not quite disguise the small flush in his face as he glanced at Storm who was doing nothing to conceal her face-splitting grin.

"I like her," said Storm.

Pamela's head tilted in her direction, her smile suffering to some degree.

"Are you sick?" she asked.

Storm considered the woman. "No."

"Terminal illnesses, anything like that?"

"Nothing but memory loss."

"No, your energy field is way off, like trying to fit a square into a circle. Who are you, kid?"

"Storm."

"Yeah, you're the one Dean told me about on the way here. White-haired, doll-like, amnesiac girl."

"Your Native American name," put in Dean.

Storm couldn't shake off the feeling that Pamela was uncomfortable around her.

"We'll be doing some work together," she told Storm, and then turned to Anna, "Anna, how are you doing, sweetie? I'm Pamela."

"Hi," said Anna nervously.

"Dean told me what's goin' on and I'm excited to help."

"Oh, well, that's nice of you."

"Not really. Any chance I can dick over an angel, I'm taking it."

"Why?"

"They stole something from me." Pamela removed the sunglasses where the misty white orbs that were her eyes still managed to have some friendly crinkle as she smiled. "Demon-y, I know, but they're just plastic. Good for business. Makes me look extra-psychic, don't you think? Now, how about you tell me what your deal is, hmm? Don't you worry. But, listen," she added to Storm's general direction, "I don't like the vibe I'm getting from you—I feel like I could flick my finger at you and your soul'll be ripped from your body, so I don't feel comfortable meddling with your head with hypnosis. Hope you don't take offense."

"I don't."

They soon transcended upstairs into the living room where Anna assumed a laying position on the couch Storm was sitting at earlier. Pamela started with counting down from five, telling Anna she was going to enter a very deep sleep.

"Your father—what's his name?" Pamela asked in a soothing tone, as if she were speaking to an infant on the brink of sleep.

"Rick Milton."

Storm watched Anna's eyes rolling behind her heavy eyelids.

"Alright, but I want you to look further back—when you were very young. Just a couple years old."

"I don't want to."

"It'll be okay, Anna. Just one look—that's all we need."

"No."

The silent tone in which she spoke sounded as dangerous as someone reloading a shotgun. Storm was uneasy, aware of the vague flicker of the lamp to her right.

"What's your dad's name? Your real dad? Why is he angry with you?"

"No!" Anna screamed in a way that suggested she didn't have enough air in her lungs. She choked out the next few 'no's' in the same strangled cries, "No, no, _no!"_

The atmosphere in the room had risen to a panic as Anna's chest lurched forward as if she was about to have some kind of fit.

"Anna, calm down. No!" Pamela suddenly added to Dean who moved to run by her side to calm her down, but was thrown across the room by what seemed by an invisible slingshot.

Storm, who had been in the crossfire of Dean's body, accepted the elder brother's helping hand and he brought her to her feet.

Sam was in a confusion on who to ask who was alright; Storm and Dean, or Anna who was still screaming, "_He's gonna kill me!_"

"Wake, Anna," Pamela ordered firmly. "Wake in one, two, three, four, five . . ." There was a silence in which Anna's eyes shot open, showing no sign that she had just been screaming for what seemed her life. She lifted herself into an upright sitting position as the others surrounded her with baited breath. "Anna . . . Anna, you alright?" Pamela asked.

"Thank you, Pamela. I remember now."

"Remember what?" said Sam.

"Who I am."

Dean, who was wearing an intense frown, said to her with a little jerk of his head, "I'll bite. Who are you?"

"I'm an angel."

Storm didn't expect it, but she felt more than one pair of eyes on her, as if she had been the one to say the words. It took a minute for Anna's statement to penetrate Storm's expression and when it did, all she could manage was for her two eyebrows to deepen into a frown.

"An angel," she repeated, but not questioningly, moreover that she was echoing the truth of her words.

"Don't be afraid," said Anna, getting to her feet and meeting Storm's eyes directly, as if the reassurance was intended mostly for her. "I'm not like the others."

"I don't find that very reassuring," said Ruby who had doidled back in the living room doorway.

"Neither do I," said Pamela, reaching her hand vaguely in the air in search for Dean who helped her to her feet.

Storm was only partly listening; Anna was still looking at her with a searching look, and she wasn't sure if the uncertainty in her face made her feel better or not. Sam noticed the moment between the two.

"Anna . . . you said before that you felt like you knew Storm, and well, you kinda both have your ears directed heavenward . . . could Storm . . . ?"

The question was vague, hanging lighter than snow in the air, and yet it made the rock of confirmation drop so heavily into Storm's chest that her gaze fell from the weight of it. Storm examined her fingertips where her thin nails were longer than others on some fingers, to a simple silver ring with a green stone embedded in it on her middle finger. She had gotten the thing at a dusty gift shop that was two blocks from her apartment. The fat man behind the counter with the missing-toothed smile had taken favor to her and offered her the little ring from his own collection for only three-fifty.

Storm didn't know why she was thinking of this now, and suddenly felt a little foolish.

When she felt brave enough to lift her head again, there was not one eye that wasn't on either her or Anna. Storm was looking at Dean for some reason, maybe because she was unsure of where his priorities lie. She could at least trust that fact that Sam would not pull a gun to her head even if somehow Anna eventually confirmed his obscure question. But Dean looked as uncertain as she felt, his hand suspended just over his mouth until he wiped it down and shook his head to no one in particular.

"No," said Anna eventually, and the one word was like ripping the yellow ribbon at the end of a tiresome, intense race. Storm hardly moved, but her lips parted to take in the breath that stung her dried lips, yet Anna spoke over her, "No, you're not an angel."

Anna's answer only did more to add to the whirlpool of uncertainty that swam through Storm's head, but again before she could say anything, Sam said, "You don't know what?"

"I have no idea. I can remember and place every angel's face out there, and you're not one of them. I can't tell if you're human."

_I can't tell if you're human. _The only thing this sentence suggested to Storm was the possibility of her being _not _human, and if she was not human or angel, what was she?

She had never been so infuriated with her amnesia, never so angry that her mind didn't work as the others did and couldn't just think back to even confirm her own species. Was there anything truly over the past three years that had indicated the blood in her veins wasn't human, though? Aside from hearing voices, her odd sleeping pattern and—and making a man explode in the back of an alleyway . . .

Storm lost her own mental argument.

"I don't think Pamela's hypnosis will work any better on you, though," Anna continued but succeeded little in taking Storm away from her thoughts. "You have this—wall that blocks out everything, even familiarity with small things. You could have been any person before."

Storm didn't ask how she knew this, perhaps because she herself already knew it. She was wondering whether or not she would have preferred Anna to tell her that she _was _an angel; it would have been better than this dark abyss of precariousness that settled within her. There was only one thing she cared about now, whether or not she didn't like what she would find; to remember.

"Okay, but putting all this aside," said Dean to Anna, slicing through the icy silence that seemed to exist only for Storm, "you seemed to be on first tabs with Castiel and Uriel. You know them?"

"We were sorta in the same foxhole," answered Anna, at last taking her probing eyes from Storm to look at Dean.

"You worked for them?" asked Sam.

"Try the other way around."

"Well look at you," said Dean with raised eyebrows.

"But now they want to kill you?" asked Pamela.

"Orders are orders. I'm sure I have a death sentence on my head," said Anna.

"Why is that?" asked Storm.

"I disobeyed—which, for us, is about the worst thing you can do. I fell."

_Fell._

Sam saw Storm's body, limp as a rag-doll, fall through the tree branches and land before his car. Lightning as white as Storm's hair had illuminated the whole thing, and with his arms folded, he glanced sideways at her.

_If not an angel . . . **what?**_

"Meaning?" pressed Dean.

"She fell to earth, became human," confirmed Pamela and Sam was distracted for a moment.

"Wait a minute . . . I don't understand," he said. "So, angels can just become human?"

"It kind of hurts. Try cutting your kidney out with a butter knife," said Anna. "That kind of hurts. I ripped out my grace."

"Come again?" said Dean.

Storm's focus was beginning to waver in and out from the conversation. There was an ache just above her right brow and she massaged it, waves of exhaustion gnarling into her like tree roots. Anna was saying something about her mother, how she couldn't get pregnant and had her instead when she 'fell'.

"Storm?" Sam's voice was the one that stood out from Storm's pain and she looked up, already predicting his question.

"I'm fine."

"I know you would think I'd have answers, Storm," said Anna, her voice less welcoming than the latter. "I'm sorry. Who you are, where you come from—you don't stand out in my mind."

"I understand." But Storm didn't understand. She didn't understand why when emotions raised high that all of the light bulbs in the room exploded, why she heard voices, and how she had made a man's innards rip from beneath his skin and paint the alley walls with his blood.

"I don't think any of you understand how royally screwed we all are," said Ruby unexpectedly.

"She's right. Heaven wants me dead," said Anna.

"And Hell just wants you. And now that you've got light-bulb killer tagging along, you're only doing more to parch their thirst to find you, and that's gonna happen sooner or later."

"I know. Which means I have to find my grace."

"Your what?" said Sam.

"My grace."

"You can do that?" said Dean.

"If I can find it."

"So, what, you're just gonna take some divine bong hit and shazam, you're Roma Downey?"

"Something like that."

"Alright, I like this plan. So where's this grace of yours?"

"Lost track. I was falling about ten-thousand miles per hour at the time."

Sam's eyes suddenly sparked with recognition. "Wait, you mean falling, like literally? Like a comet or meteor?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Alright, bear with me . . ."

In a matter of minutes, Sam and the others were surrounded by various books and magazines and even some newspaper articles. Sam was flipping through an article that was so aged that the white paper was fading into yellow and the pages turned with unease.

"Here, in '85 a meteorite vanished in the sky in northwestern Ohio. It was sighted nine months before Anna was born, and she was born in that part of Ohio."

"You're pretty buff for a nerd," snorted Ruby and for some reason, her and Storm made eye-contact.

"Look," sighed Sam, "I think it was Anna here, and same time—another meteorite in Kentucky."

"And that's her grace?" asked Ruby.

"Might be." And then he spoke to Anna, "Also, if you 'fell' in 1985, it would explain why you wouldn't have any idea who or what Storm is, because you turned human before I found her on the highway."

"You're gonna have to tell me that story again," said Dean. "Hey, maybe if Anna gets back her angel mojo she'll be able to tell more about Storm."

"Sam Winchester." Storm gave the ends of Sam's left fingers a gentle pull and a he did a double take. He looked into her dark green eyes where a few of her white hairs were messily getting in the way of, as if she had just stepped off of a motorcycle. When he did not reply immediately, she repeated his name in a strange mingle of soft firmness, "Sam Winchester."

"What's up?"

"I need to ask you something."

The second pull she gave to his fingers implied that she wanted to see him alone. His eyes did a sort of waver above the others' heads before he straightened up, cleared his throat, and followed Storm into the kitchen where she wasted no time in meeting his gaze with her intense one.

"What's on your mind?" he asked.

"I was on a road in the middle of a thunderstorm when you found me," she said as if it was necessary to remind him. "The day after was the birth of my new mind and personality. You have to tell me everything about that night, everything about the condition of my body when you found me. Anything you can think of. Anything."

Sam surveyed Storm tentatively. Vaguely in the back of his mind he had expected Storm to ask this of him these past few days, yet he knew she was searching for the specific details, and the details were the things he could not recall after such a long stretch of time.

"I—I don't know, Storm," he said, hoping to sound more sincere than hopeless.

"You found me in the road," she repeated, her expression unfazed by his answer. "Was I there when you were driving?"

"I—" But yes, he did know that, but the answer had hidden in the back of his mind for years. "You fell."

"Fell?"

"When I was driving down the road it looked like you—fell from the sky. I wouldn't have even noticed you if lightning hadn't struck at the exact same time you landed on the road. It wasn't like any meteorite."

He could tell that even if this hardly answered any questions she had, it at least satisfied her to some degree.

"Falling from the sky makes it seem like a fallen angel, but—if Anna doesn't think so . . . Do you remember anything else?"

The next thing that came to mind was that Storm had been completely naked, but he was reluctant to admit this to her, even if her nudity was the last thing on his mind when he saw her lying in that road. His silence intensified her questioning gaze.

"Your pulse was skyrocketing," he said, hoping the change of subject would drain away the flush in his cheeks. "And, uh, . . ."

It was the tweet from a morning bird outside that finally reminded Sam of the strangest occurrence that had happened that night.

"You had this—this, uh, bird in your hands," he continued, assuming Storm would show signs of astonishment at his words, but she surprised him with maintaining her frown and remaining mute. "Weird, huh?"

"What kind of bird?"

Once that the story was rolling, Sam's memory was suddenly persevering and there was little pause before his next words, "A dove, I think."

Sam's eyebrows were narrowing, the whole strangeness of the condition in which he had found her seeming raw all over again. He wanted to ask the question he knew was inane at this point; '_You don't remember __**anything?' **_

"Does that mean anything to you?" he asked instead.

"I don't know much about doves other than they represent love, peace, and hope; those kind of things. If you're religious, the Holy Spirit. Why I would be holding one, I have no idea."

Sam could hear the anxiety in her voice she was trying to hide and he tried to think of something to say, but he didn't know where to begin. Her grim smile indicated she knew he was looking for consoling words and also that they were not needed.

"Is that all you can think of?" she asked.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Yeah, I think so."

"Thank you, Sam."

Sam laughed; he couldn't help it. He had given her no information that could lead to the answers she obviously wanted, and yet the way she thanked him, even the way her eyes glimmered with the same sincerity her tone exhaled, she made it appear as though he had been a great asset. He didn't feel he deserved her genuineness and would have almost preferred her to be irritated with him for his lack of helpfulness.

"For what?" He was unable to restrain his voice from a skeptic snort. "I didn't exactly give you a five-pointer map."

"No, you didn't. In fact, I'm more confused than I was before." And at his bemused look, she added, "I just appreciate your willingness to help. You don't hesitate in helping when you can, and I find this admirable."

She wasn't smiling, but something about her tone, maybe it was the sincerity again, that made Sam feel unable to come up with an appropriate response. He wondered if his silence would offend her, but what was she expecting him to reply with? 'Thanks' was juvenile, and all at once he was suddenly self-aware of the impression he might be leaving upon Storm.

"Do you think that Castiel and the other knew what I was?" Storm asked as if there hadn't been a pause, saving Sam from his moment of indecisiveness. He leaped at the chance at the new direction the conversation was taking.

"I was sort of sleeping the sleep of unconsciousness," he said with a smile that spread too easily across his face, and hurt when he tried to fight it. She returned it knowingly.

"I think they do. Why would they know and not Anna? What if they're the only ones that can tell me what I am?" She wasn't hysteric, but her placid pitch wavered slightly. "Seeking them out would be a poor decision, wouldn't it?"

Sam realized she was half-joking, one half full of common sense at the fact that she had witnessed what the angels were really like, the other full of desperation to figure out the truth.

He chuckled, imagining what it would feel like if the only people who knew the truth of your existence were people like Castiel and Uriel. "Yeah, I think so," he got out, still with that dry laugh that felt like chalk on his tongue.

"Hmm," she hummed, sitting timidly in the dining chair she had sat in earlier, her fingers spread out in front of her and looking down at them as if counting all ten. "Guess I'll have to think of something else should a reunion with our feather-butt friends not come anytime soon."

This time Sam didn't want to fight the smile his lips were making of their own volition. "And are you glad that you're not part of the feather-butt family tree?"

"Glad, yes, but confused all the same. I don't think I would make a very good angel. I have a hard enough time not burning my toast in the morning."

"Because the two are entirely related."

"Absolutely."

Sam placed his thumbs in his pockets, glancing toward the living room, assuming he would meet Dean's eyes. The pair that replaced his were Ruby's and she was staring at him in a way he could not place. Perhaps anger? He looked back at Storm.

"We'll figure out something. Maybe what Dean said was right; maybe if we find Anna's grace, she'll be able to tell who you are."

'Who' you are, not 'what'. His choice of words alone spoke kindness.

"Maybe you could even convince Pamela to give a whirl with the hypnosis," he added as an afterthought.

"Maybe," she said, but he could tell she was humoring him. She got to her feet, meeting his gaze steadily and puffing out a sigh that ruffled her bangs. "I don't know. I don't think psychics and I click, but there was one thing she was spot on with."

Sam's eyebrows creased upward questioningly. "Oh yeah? What's that?"

"You know how to wear a pair of jeans like no guy I've ever met."

Storm left the room to join the others and Sam had to wait a full three minutes for his blush and grin to die down before he followed her.


	5. Lions

**Writing several stories at the same time? I take on the challenge with the result of aching fingers. **

**Thank you for your reviiiiiieeews :] you all are just lovely.**

_-Five-_

Lions

_Reality or dream, I know of no place on earth that has a six-foot fountain that has steaming green tea._

Storm leaned back on the red velvet armchair, glancing up at a sun that poured diamonds in its beams. A sky with clouds that appeared to be painted with white paint, abnormal in their texture and too perfect.

Storm curled her toes in the emerald green grass, smoothing her fingers along the material of the chair as she overlooked the meadow, every pore in her face seeming to take in the full weight of the white sun's soft heat. The fountain of tea, gray as storm clouds, stood five feat away next to a glass table with a see-through bowl piled high with Cheeto's, but all she did was stare.

"They're there for you, you know," came a dark purr to her left where she turned. Uriel sat on an identical armchair, though its velvet was of ocean green. His legs were crossed, leaning in the back of it with his folded hands on his knees like a therapist about to question Storm on her life. The smile on his face was so vague or otherwise lacking so much kindness that Storm was unsure on his expression altogether.

"Is this where the angels spend their Friday afternoons?" she asked.

"Not a one," he replied with only a small hint of bitter amusement stringing along with that grim smile of his. "This is your place."

"My place?"

"A part of it," said Uriel, which did nothing to aid to Storm's confusion. He shifted in his seat with an air of one about to break some bad news to another.

"Am I dreaming?" she said.

"Is that your way of asking if this is real or not?"

"Yes."

"You're dreaming, but that doesn't extinguish the realness of it. I had no other way of speaking to you, seeing as you hide under the wings of those insufferable Winchesters."

Storm paused, listening to the neighboring call of a pigeon's tweet but could not directly locate its position. She looked back at Uriel.

"The use of your word 'hiding' makes it sound as if there is a reason to hide," she said.

Uriel gave his first smile that showed any genuineness to it.

"What am I?" she said.

"You know what you're not."

"But you know exactly what I am. What is it to be important enough to involve angels visiting me in my dreams? What do you gain in refraining from telling me?"

Uriel outstretched a pudgy hand and rested it over Storm's that was on the arm of the chair. She did not withdraw, but her eyebrows came together.

"The information is valuable to you, and when there is value, a price can always be laid out," said Uriel.

Storm's hand slid out from underneath his.

"You want something from me?" she asked. "In return for telling me what I am?"

"Nothing is free, not even in Heaven."

"No."

Uriel's eyebrows raised. "I haven't even told you what I want in return."

"You want her; you want Anna."

"She means more to you than answering the mystery of your life?"

"The loss of my humanity means more to me than answering the mystery of my life."

At this, Uriel actually threw back his head and let out a bark of laughter. "You can't lose what you never had to begin with. Anna is someone who has committed an atrocious crime. Turning in a criminal in exchange for the information you need. When you really look at it, not doing so would make you yourself a criminal."

Storm breathed out silently, turning her head away from the prying black eyes of the angel. "You knew what I was before you even saw me. 'How could _it _be with the Winchesters' you said. You implied I was something you knew about, something that you were surprised to find on earth, as if I could be anywhere else. Even if I didn't care what happened to Anna, how could I be sure that you wouldn't take me along with her?"

There was a strong silence, and what broke it eventually was Uriel speaking in icy impatience. "And you're implying that you're something important enough for us to take?"

"You would have told me what I am by now. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to hold the information over my head like this; it wouldn't have been 'valuable' enough."

"Don't overrate yourself."

"I'm not going to tell you where we are so you have no reason to tell me what I want to know—so why you're still here . . . I don't know."

A silence, similar to the last one, settled in. And one by one, the sounds of the area seemed to turn off. The chirp of birds stopped like they had been muted by a remote, the trickle of the fountain silenced, and altogether the wind, colors and sun seemed to die down with them.

Storm awoke to a stream of sunlight that was aiding the dots of sweat along her hairline. She wiped at it, turning her head slowly on the couch pillow and watching Dean enter the living room. He glanced at her, and then returned his gaze to the paper in his hands.

"Great; was 'bout to wake you. We're about ready to take this road trip down to Kentucky, if you're ready."

"Are we on the search for Anna's grace?"

"Huh?" He seemed distracted. "Oh—uh, yeah. I mean we don't exactly have a compass leadin' us due north, but she seems to think she'll know when she knows."

"I'm ready—whenever you are."

"Peachy."

He paused in the doorway and Storm waited for him to say something. His fingers folded the paper and he took awhile before glancing at her over his shoulder. He looked to be in consideration of turning away, but he surprised her in speaking,

"Sorry to get you cooked up in all of this."

She surveyed him.

"In all this," she echoed. "Something tells me I would have ended up 'in all this' whether you interfered or not."

"Yeah, but—I dunno," he said with a dry chuckle. "I wouldn't get anyone involved in this life if I could help it. You bein' here is kinda accidental. It's just—" But he didn't finish and Storm continued to consider him.

"I don''t have a life to return to, Dean," she said steadily. "What I have in my life is weekly therapy sessions that drive in circles, a one-bedroom apartment where I can hear the neighbors screaming the next room over, and my idea of a fun night is getting a new book from the library and reading until I pass out. All the while I have no idea what I—" She met his eyes. "Who I am."

"Therapy, screamin' neighbors and books, huh?" he said after a pause. "Sounds like a calm Sunday afternoon in my book."

"At least here I'm closer to knowing who I am if I tag along with you guys."

"Seem to be doin' that a lot lately. Just consider us your liberated crew who helps you 'find yourself'," he said with a bite of bitter amusement in his tone. "Well, you give off the whole mystery vibe in the group, so that's somethin'." He paused again. "Also, Sammy seems to like havin' you around so that's another somethin'."

They looked at each other for another few moments, up until Dean gave an awkward nod of his head before leaving Storm to allow her to get ready.

Once on the road, Storm requested to stop by her apartment to gather a few necessities. As she stood in her living room, she looked around at all the pencil sketchings on the wall of all the birds that had frequently visited her in the early morn and their alien songs. She knew she wouldn't be able to bring them, and anyway; they reminded her too vividly of the times she had drawn them inside of the ward.

She packed her clothes along with a few other things from the bathroom such as a toothbrush, shampoo and conditioner. Luckily she didn't have to worry about things like tampons because not once in her three years of consciousness had she ever gotten her period.

Storm paused in her bedroom, her legs soon leading her to the night stand beside the bed and opening it. She pulled out the decaying deck of Uno cards, flipping it over in her fingers. She wasn't smiling at the fond memories of when Sam had visited her back in the hospital, but what she felt was a kind of beautiful ache in her chest. She was at a loss for the reasoning behind this and ended up tossing the cards in her bag.

Storm was squished between Anna and Ruby in the back seat of the Impala, a Twizzler wedged between her teeth with her head bowed low as she read _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. _She was aware of Dean frequently looking in the rear-view mirror at them, chuckling lightly.

"What?" Ruby said sharply.

"Nothin'. S'just—an angel, a demon, and an amnesiac girl ridin' in the back seat. It's like the setup to a bad joke. Or a Penthouse Forum Letter."

"Dude . . . reality . . . porn," said Sam.

"You call this reality?" countered Dean.

"What?" said Storm unexpectedly and everyone glanced at her.

"What?" echoed Dean.

"What's that?" she said.

"What's what?"

"Porn."

Dean and Sam glanced at each other, Sam's face uncertain whilst Dean looked as though he was holding back a guffaw.

"Uh . . ." said Dean. "Well it's—um, like a film industry—generally intended for male viewers and—"

"Dude," interrupted Sam again.

"What?" said Dean and Storm together, and he added, "It's not like I would _show _her what it is."

"_Dude."_

"_What__?"_

"Too far," said Sam.

"She's not like a kid or anything. I mean, doesn't look like it. Do you even know how old you are?" Dean directed at Storm.

"No," she said. "They've estimated me to be either late teens to early twenties."

"Well there you go," said Dean to Sam who was fighting an eye-roll. Dean glanced at Storm again. "Jeeze, you're almost so innocent it's cute."

Storm looked unsure of what to say to this, so she looked at Sam who was wearing a guilty look on his brother's behalf. She smiled uncertainly back.

.

"It's just up this way," Anna was saying as the five of them ventured across the oak field, though it was quite unnecessary seeing as even from a distance the figure of the enormous tree was visible. Its intertwined branches that gleamed with emerald leaves seemed to stretch skyward, a rather impressive outline with the orange light of the setting sun just behind it.

Sam stopped when he realized there was a distinct lack of footsteps from behind, and looked around. "Storm?"

Storm was about ten feet behind the rest of the group, her eyes cast on the violet and orange hues of the sunset painted sky. There was a rather remarkable effect on the thick wisps of clouds that reflected the blood-red glow of the sun in the horizon, which seemed to be the thing that stole Storm's attention.

He glanced at the others, realized their attention was still anchored on the tree, hesitating another moment before walking up to Storm who seemed oblivious to his advances.

"Storm?" he repeated.

She shook her head as if awakening from a daze and looked at him. "Sorry?"

"Everything okay?"

"Yes," she said at once, but her eyes remained unfocused and he wondered if she was listening to him. She looked back at the sky, saying gently, "It's beautiful."

He looked at it, too, but then took the advantage of her distraction to study her more fully. There was almost a wistful sweep in her eyes that were still measuring the sky up and down. He decided that her skin reminded him of the sleek texture of an orchard's petal with eyes the color of dark moss. With her hair she almost looked inhuman, alien, yet not in a disconcerting way.

"Yeah," he agreed.

For a moment he thought she was crying, but when she looked at him again, her eyes were quite clear. She smiled.

"Let's go."

When they rejoined the group beside the group, Anna was saying, "It's where my grace touched down. I can feel it."

There was a tweeting noise and Sam looked up to see a blue jay perched on one of the closer branches, its head bobbing up and down, bouncing a little on its stick legs.

"You ready to do this?" said Dean and Anna gave him a grim smile.

"Not really."

"Anna, what are we even looking for?" said Sam, tearing his eyes away from the bird, but the tweeting only seemed to be intensifying.

Anna moved tenderly forward, holding out a palm and planting it over the tree trunk. He could see a dark comprehension flood her expression as she withdrew, shaking her head.

"It doesn't matter. It's not here. Not anymore. Someone took it," she said.

"Someone?" said Storm. "There's probably only a spare few people who would have any idea where your grace landed."

"Maybe a few of your halo-twirling buddies?" suggested Dean but Anna was quiet.

The rest of them echoed her silence, but the wilderness certainly didn't. Quite the contrary. It seemed from the moment they had approached the tree, the birds of the area had all fluttered down onto it, making it alive with birdsong. There were so many tweeting at once that it was honestly almost annoying.

"Uh, guys?" said Dean, but he needn't point out anything; everyone was already staring.

Every branch on the beautiful tree held a various breed of bird, their beaks snapping open and closed as they flapped their wings and sang their songs. They were all feather to feather, so close it was almost comical, but in truth it was rather alarming. With the entire tree alit with numerous colors, all due to the different colored feathers, it looked as though it had been decorated for Christmas.

Sam looked at Storm who was staring up at them all, as if trying to catch sight of each and every one of them.

"That normal?" said Dean, actually having to raise his voice an octave in order to make himself heard over the birds.

"No," said Storm and everyone looked at her, but she was looking surprised with herself. She dismissed herself from elaborating by shaking her head.

"Well, if the grace isn't here, we don't have any reason to be hanging around a tree all day," said Ruby. "We should get out of sight."

Storm was last to disperse away from the tree, only turning around when Anna called her name.

.

The still of the night was deafening. The wind was frozen in the air, the scurries of animals and their calls were nonexistent, and the tirade of overall silence made a pronounced ringing in Storm's ears. The quiet was so bold, that a leaf could be hear falling gently on the soft earth.

It was unsettling, unnatural. It made Storm think of the silence that would ensue from the audience as the lion was set upon the gladiators. But if the forest was the audience, and her and the others the soldiers, then who was the lion?

From the barn behind her, she could hear Dean's voice cleanly, "We still got the hex bags. I say we head back to the panic room."

"What, forever?" snapped Ruby.

"I'm just thinking out loud!"

"Oh, you call that thinking?"

"Hey!" intervened Sam. "Hey, hey, hey. Stop it."

"Anna's grace is gone, you understand? She can't angel up. She can't protect us. We can't fight Heaven and Hell. One side, maybe. But not both, not at once. And all we've got as defense is one ex-angel, a coupla hunter humans, a demon, and a memory-drained, light bulb-exploding, comic con reject."

"Storm, you should come inside."

Anna had come out from the barn by Storm's side without Storm realizing it. The girls looked at each other carefully until Anna cast her gaze to where Storm's had been previously. The moon was out, not yet full but its light was carried heavily within its silvery beams. Storm stared at it until faint black stars peppered her vision and met Anna's eyes directly again.

"I know what it's like not to know where you come from," said Anna in a steady voice.

"Or what you are," said Storm.

"Who your real parents are."

"How you've come to be here."

"And why it appears the Winchesters always must be involved somehow."

"You talk about them like they're famously known," said Storm.

"I've heard about them long enough; I feel like I know them. And you've heard about them, too. By the angels, I mean."

"I honestly don't hear a lot from them."

"But you still do, Storm, which in some regard means that you are connected to Heaven somehow. You wouldn't be able to hear them talk otherwise. That's a start."

"A start to a new circle of questions. If I'm connected to Heaven but not an angel, what would that make me?"

"A radio? Someone who has the power to tune into the convo of higher beings?"

Storm's head inclined slightly as she surveyed Anna. "You said yourself you don't think I'm human."

"I said I wasn't sure if you're human, but it's hard to tell since I don't have my grace. But I still swear that we have met before."

Anna's eyes crinkled as her eyebrows creased upward in wonder.

"In Heaven or earth?" said Storm.

"I don't know. It's not so much your face that's familiar as much as—just you. You're just someone I felt like I've been around before, had in my life for a short period of time."

"I guess I could have been anywhere before three years ago."

Anna moved so that she was right beside Storm and she felt the heat of her hand against the back of hers, and for a moment she thought that she might grab it, but Anna just looked at her with more intensity.

"I somehow feel an obligation to help you. I just . . . once I get my grace back, maybe we can get to the bottom of it. Together, I mean. Assuming you're not still with the brothers."

Storm looked over her shoulder at the barn, as if the establishment itself was the Winchesters they were discussing in low tones over.

"It would be dangerous," said Anna, as if interpreting Storm's glance at the building a sign of fear. "Having a death toll over my head and everything . . . But so would be traveling with those two."

"Are you asking me to come with you to . . . wherever it is you may be going when you finally get your grace back?"

"Maybe. Like I said; I feel like I know you, and maybe I'm just taking it on faith on that being true. If I can, I want to help you. Get your memories back and everything."

"You can just be my guardian angel," snorted Storm, and the two shared an uncertain chuckle. "I appreciate the offer, and—and I'll just have to think more on it."

"Do you have something that would potentially keep you here?" said Anna, but her voice was soft.

Storm once more glanced at the barn, and as if caught in the act of doing something inappropriate, looked quickly forward again and sighed out a sigh that spoke helplessness in all tones.

"Not that I know of," said Storm.

Anna apparently decided not to answer.

When the girls returned to the safety of the barn, Dean was pacing the length of the room with his eyebrows contracted and barely glanced up at Anna or Storm. Sam was seated on a stack of loose hay with Ruby standing closely by, her arms crossed and cold gaze lingering on Storm.

Storm waved at Sam with a feeble wiggle of her fingers and he managed a smile in return.

"What's going on?" said Anna.

"What's going on?" said Ruby sharply. "What's going on is that we've got the wooden walls of this barn between us and two armies from Heaven and Hell. We're sitting ducks out here and we have no lines of defense against them."

"What are our options?" said Storm.

"Flee, hide, throw exploding light bulbs at them and hope it's enough to intimidate them away?"

"Ruby . . ." said Sam but Storm wasn't looking at him.

"If we can drive to Home Depot now, we can probably get enough that's needed," said Storm.

Ruby seized her with a look of purest unamusement. "All of our lives are on the block, alright? That doesn't rule you out, even if no one really knows why you're here in the first place."

"I've been told I have perky breasts."

Ruby actually threw her hands up in exasperation. "Great. Just great."

"Um, guys?" Anna was suddenly saying, steering everyone's attention toward her. Apart from Storm who had slapped her palm to her forehead, feeling as though a harpoon had just pierced her brain. "The angels are talking again."

"What are they saying?" said Sam anxiously, getting to his feet.

"It's weird . . . like a recording . . . a loop. It says 'Dean Winchester gives us Anna and the Athedas by midnight, or . . ."

"Or what?" said Dean, frozen in mid-pace and hard eyes set on the angel.

"'Or we hurl him back into damnation,'" finished Storm and she and Dean met gazes,

The following silence seemed to prickle up Storm's arms, making goose pimples swell almost painfully along the surface of her skin.

"What's Athedas?" said Sam finally.

"Search me," said Dean quietly, but his eyes were still on Storm.

But of course, who else would it be? But it was _the _Athedas, implying it was a thing or object. Yet the implication was clear; the angels wanted Anna and Storm, and were threatening to march Dean right back into the pit should they not meet these terms.

"Anna," said Sam slowly, who also seemed to be following along Dean's thought process and was surveying Storm with worry, "do you know of any weapon that works on an angel?"

"To what? Kill them?" she said and Sam nodded. "Nothing we could get to. Not right now."

"Okay, wait, wait, wait," said Dean, the cogs in his brain working fiercely under the weight of his thoughts. "I say we call Bobby. Get him back from hedonism."

"Dean, what's he gonna tell us that we don't already know?" said Sam timidly.

"I don't know, but we gotta think of something."

This 'something' was searched high and low through stacks of ledgers and textbooks for the following few hours, but to no avail. It was up to the point where Sam, Ruby, and Storm were the only ones left in the barn. Sam was reading a book while leaning over a wooden desk that looked like a bar of dried soap, bone-dry and cracked in various places and perched on rickety legs. His eyes were red with tiredness and had re-read one line over five times without taking in the meaning of it at all.

Storm was happily engulfed in a nest of hay, the smell of it, even the way its scratchy texture crinkled beneath her bodyweight was familiar to her. She too was reading a book, three years of doing nothing for fun but reading and drawing aiding her skill and patience.

Far into the night, three hours before midnight, Sam's soft breaths that were not exactly snores filled the thick air, the only sound Storm could hear. That and the crunch of boots on hay and Storm peered over the top of her book in time to see Ruby about to leave the building.

"Where are you going?" asked Storm.

Ruby permitted Storm a glance, which was saying a lot since Storm had the growing suspicion that the demon didn't like her very much.

"Trying to do what you guys aren't," she said.

"So you have to slip away while Sam is sleeping?"

"I didn't say he'd like it."

The two stared each other down, Storm's fingers suspended in the action of turning the next page.

"Do you want to try and stop me?" said Ruby. Her voice wasn't skeptic, it was challenging. Like she wanted an excuse to lash out at Storm who was tasting the metallic tang of blood on her chapped lips as she ran her tongue over them.

"I can't stop you," stated Storm, not allowing her gaze to waver from the dark eyes of the demon. She swallowed a trail of thin, warm saliva that slid with dull taste down her throat. And as Ruby turned away again, she said, "But I can make a light bulb shatter some glass in your eye and that would hurt—a lot."

Ruby only hesitated a moment longer with her fingers curling along the door handle, then opened it silently and left. Storm stood up, using her finger to save the place in her book and shaking the hay out of her hair. Sam's only response to her approaching presence was a gentle crinkle of his nose, though he was quite still with his head propped up on the thick, yellowing pages. His body rose softly up and down in time with his even breathing, indicating he was in a deep sleep.

She stared down at him as if taking in his appearance was something of a rare occurrence. It was odd thinking of it so bluntly, but she liked looking at him. She had also felt this way back in the hospital three years ago when she watched him do his homework, observing his brow crinkle and eyes gleam over with concentration when faced with a difficult concept.

The three years felt more like ten, but she was at least certain that Sam had remained, more or less, the same person. Only when she faced them again did she realize how much she missed the gentle warmth his gaze had swept upon her since the first time they had met. Storm had never understood the brand of kindness he had shown her since that night, how he stayed with her for that perfect week as if sensing how lonely and confused she had been, vulnerable as a babe left in the woods. She had never reciprocated for how he had acted; she hadn't had any time, and now when they reunited they were supposedly about to face the fight of their lives.

If there was time, of course, Storm would ponder on ways to repay him.

"Sam Winchester?" Storm said softly, as if afraid to wake him even if this was her intention. She pulled gently on the collar of his shirt, like a child trying to wake up a parent. Sam's eyelids fluttered at once, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he sat up in his chair, looking up at her.

"What's up?" he said sleepily, examining the pieces of hay still attached to her body and hair.

"Everyone's disappearing on us," she said, casually flicking off a lock of straw from her sleeve. "I don't know where Dean or Anna are and Ruby just left."

Sam seemed to blink himself awake. "Left when?"

"A few minutes ago."

"She say why?"

"To do what we are apparently not doing." She pulled up a wooden crate and sat on it, and even if it was a little higher than Sam's chair, she still only met him eye-level. "Also, it's apparently our last night on earth. I wasn't sure if you wanted to spend it sleeping. Or, maybe you did. If so, I'm sorry."

Sam considered her. "You don't seem exactly rattled that we're being hunted down by Heaven and Hell."

"I have too many other things to be rattled about, Sam Winchester; I don't have room for another."

"Seriously though . . . how are you?"

Storm took her time in surveying him, weighing her willingness to tell him the truth. Sam surely wasn't looking for the general reply of 'fine', but genuinely wanted a sincere answer from her, and once again Storm felt that terrible pang that he was being too kind than what she deserved.

"Confused," she nodded. "Irritated, kind of angry. A little hungry."

Sam's lips twitched in a halfhearted smile, glancing at her stomach as if expecting it to growl and then met her eyes again. "Uh, afraid at all?"

Storm was silent for a few moments, resting her hand on her knee and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I—no, I'm not afraid," she said at last, and it was perfectly true. Amidst the whirlpool of emotions that fastened a tight fist around her, fear was not among them. And when Sam looked slightly unconvinced, she added, "I just don't believe that any of us are going to die."

He looked a little taken aback by her choice of words and she hurried to add, "If there is a God, I don't think he would be cruel enough to reunite us together after three years only to tear us apart days later."

'Us' could have meant anyone, and Sam knew that, but her sentence seemed to be pointed toward him and Storm alone and he smiled to himself, but quickly straightened his face when she glanced at him again.

"So, how's it feel to be on Heaven's most wanted list?" he asked.

"Who says I am?"

"The message seemed pretty clear. Does the name Athedas ring any bells?"

"Yes," she said at once, "but it's not enough to bring back any memories. But yeah, it does sound familiar."

"Think it was your name?" Sam pressed, but Storm was already shrugging.

"I don't know anything, much less why Heaven would want anything to do with me."

"We'll think of something, Storm. We're not about to hand you over."

Storm breathed out something which barely passed as a laugh. "And I'm not about to make any such accusations of you. We still have," she checked her watch, but then remembered it had broken a week ago and looked up, "probably a few hours left until midnight. I'm not getting anything from that book you gave me."

"I'm not either," he sighed with a glance at the textbook before him.

Storm slumped a little in her seat, attempting to comb the hay from her hair with her fingers. She was trying to think of what to do when she let out a sharp squeak of, "Oh!" that made Sam start and she got to her feet, trotting off back to the hay where her bag was.

She returned to a half befuddled, half amused Sam who watched her sit back on the crate and fish through her bag. Twenty seconds later she pulled from it an old and familiar deck of Uno cards in which Sam stared at for several seconds.

"You've held onto them for three years?" he said in small astonishment.

"What reason did I have in throwing them away?" she said as she took the cards from the small box and began to shuffle. "I made sure to keep a tight hold on these. They remind me of you."

Sam was a little unsure of what to say to that. Though her blunt sincerity was always a little disconcerting, in some way it was rather refreshing, perhaps because of years being stuffed in the Impala with Dean who didn't exactly wear his heart on his sleeve. Also, the idea of Storm being alone in a hospital and picking up the deck of cards and thinking of him made Sam's chest endure a sort of hurtful joy.

Storm didn't give Sam a chance to be embarrassed, however. Smiling slightly as she handed him his hand of cards, she said, "Whatever happens, reliving my happiest moments is the best way I can think of spending the remaining hours."

Sam wasn't smiling as he accepted his handful of cards with fingers that didn't feel attached to his hands. He was looking at Storm who was busy beaming down at her hand with apparent genuineness, wondering if it was possible for her to be this cheerful in light of the recent events. It was simply odd to imagine something like Uno could make her eyes light up so enthusiastically. It was almost unsettling.

Yet her demeanor was irrevocably contagious, and soon Sam felt as though he was back at that hospital after a day at college, sitting by her bed playing cards, looking up words in the dictionary, and watching her draw child-like sketchings of birds.

Permitting a game of Uno for this mysterious girl suddenly seemed not only a small feat, but an enjoyable one.

.

Dean knew he was dreaming the moment Uriel stood from him on the opposite side of the barn.

"Look at that. It's so cute when monkeys wear clothes," said Uriel.

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

"It's the only way we could chat since you're all hiding like cowards."

"Don't normally see you off your leash. Where's your boss?"

"Castiel? Oh, he, uh . . . he's not here." The angel smiled a little. "See, he has this weakness. He likes you. Time's up, boy. We want them. Both of them."

Dean placed his hands in his pockets, looking at Uriel with mock consideration. "Alright, I get why you want Anna. Well, sorta. Disobeyed one of your wacko rules, followed her own free will—pissed you off. What's with Storm? Why is she suddenly such a big deal?"

Uriel hardly moved, remaining in his placid position, but perhaps his smile grew a little colder. "I'm curious as to what you think she is."

"No idea. Something too old for dusty textbooks?"

"Something too new," said Uriel, the cool amusement wavering in his tone.

"What is she?"

"And why would I tell you that, monkey?"

"Well you obviously want her for some reason, and somehow I don't think it's because of her fashion statement in hair color. You're after Anna because she became human. What, did Storm pick her nose in your presence or something?"

"She's not an angel."

"Thanks for the memo."

"She's a time bomb, and the longer you keep her in you and your brother's presence the smaller chance you have to survive. So think of it as a favor if we take her off your hands."

Dean was entirely taken aback, but he kept his face straight as he stared down Uriel with such a cool gaze that even his eyeballs felt a little chilled. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

Uriel suddenly became very interested in straightening the white cuffs of his suit in a very sanctimonious manner, but he said, "Would _you _feel safe using a tank that was only half-built?"

Dean didn't want to satisfy Uriel by responding with another comment that confirmed his confusion. "Well, I wouldn't try anything if I were you. See, Anna got her grace back. Full-blown angel now."

Uriel's eyes lifted to his. "That would be a neat trick, considering," he pulled out a necklace from underneath his suit which emitted a bluish white glow and Dean swallowed bile, "I have her grace right here. We can't let Hell get their hooks into her."

"Well, then why don't you just give her back her angel juice?"

The angel lowered the necklace back under the folds of his clothing. "She committed a serious crime."

"What, thinking for herself?"

"This is our business, not yours. She's not even human . . . not technically."

"Yeah, well, I guess I just like being a pain in the pooper."

There was a sudden glint in Uriel's eye, a dark twinkle of amusement that made Dean's stomach feel as if it was being used as a mixing bowl. "No, there's more," said the angel, his lips spreading upward to reveal his white teeth, quite alarming against his dark complexion. He let out a whoop of laughter. "You cut yourself a slice of . . . angel food cake, didn't you? Huh. You did."

"What do you care?" Dean countered, his voice like the end of a shard of glass. "You're junkless down there, right? Like a Ken doll?"

"Ooh, well, it's your last chance. Give us the girls, or—"

"Or what? You're gonna toss me back in the hole? You're bluffing."

Uriel's eyebrows rose. "Try me. This is a whole lot bigger than the plans we got for you, Dean. You can be replaced."

"What the hell?" Dean challenged. "Go ahead and do it."

"You're just crazy enough to go, aren't you?"

"What can I say? I don't break easy."

"Oh, yes . . . you do. You just have to know where to apply the right pressure."

.

Lines of morning sun snuck in through the holes in the barn walls, stretching across the dirty floor and igniting the flecks of dust mites in the air. Storm was lying in her bed of hay again, her jacket tossed over her like a blanket as she watched a small black spider scurry across the wall nearby her.

When the door opened, she did not get up but her eyes caught sight of Dean, Sam and Anna walking in. Sam was saying, "I don't know, man. Where's Ruby?"

"Hey, she's your Hell buddy," said Dean, ending his sentence with a feverish swig of his flask.

"Little early for that, isn't it?" said Anna.

"It's two am. Somewhere."

"Storm, hey," said Sam as she got to her feet, dusting herself off again. "Managed to get any sleep?"

"Maybe a wink," she said, yet her unblinking eyes lingered on Dean. "You seem on edge."

Dean looked at her, and there was definitely something shadowed along the green of his eyes. It didn't appear he could look at Storm. "On edge? Why would I be on edge?"

Storm was revoked the chance of answering by the two barn doors that opened with a blast so fierce, her hair swept about her shoulders. Following the action were two angels, carrying intimidation as an attire. Storm's eyes swept over Uriel's face before Castiel's, but he was looking at Anna.

Storm's breast lifted slightly as she inhaled a breath that seemed to dry the walls of her throat.

"Hello, Anna," said Castiel. "It's good to see you."

"How—" said Sam, and he was suddenly looking around at Storm as if possessed by the sudden tendency to run at her and carry her away. His arms sort of spread out as though he might actually activate this impulse, he looked back at the angels. "How did you find us?" He looked around at Dean who was not looking at anyone, and his silence seemed to trigger some sort of confession. "Dean?"

Dean allowed himself as much eye-contact as he could with Anna as he said quietly, "I'm sorry." He then glanced at Storm. "Both of you."

And Storm understood.

"Why?" said Sam, evidently too shocked too feel any other kind of emotion.

"Because they gave him a choice," said Anna without taking her eyes off Dean. "They either kill me . . . or kill you. I know how their minds work."

Anna reached out and took Dean's face in a gentle hand, inclining her head to kiss him softly on the lips. Self-loathing and guilt stitched to every pore of Dean's face as he allowed himself barely a second to kiss her back.

"You did the best you could. I forgive you. Okay," said Anna as she looked back at Castiel and Uriel. "No more running. I'm ready."

Storm's eyes fell upon Castiel, but still he wasn't looking at her. In fact, she got the distinct impression that he was purposefully looking at anywhere but at Storm.

"I'm sorry," he told Anna.

"No. You're not. Not really. You don't know the feeling."

"Still. We have a history. It's just—"

"I still want to know why you're bothering to hunt me down at all," said Storm suddenly, and all but Castiel's attention was drawn to her, but it was still he who answered.

"Your memory was drained from you three years previously," he told her with his eyes on the ceiling, as if he was sure this was news to her.

Honestly, the angels frightened Storm, but now that they were in her midst and sure that they had the answers she had starved for for three years, the fire of determination had never burned so greatly in her stomach. Now that she actually faced them and it was the time for action, she felt braver.

"It was," she said, taking a careful step forward. "Three years ago I fell from the sky on an old California highway in the middle of a lightning storm and was saved by Sam Winchester. I haven't been able to remember a thing beforehand. You know why and you know what I am. I'm asking you to tell me."

Storm was suddenly second-guessing her bravery as Castiel's cool blue eyes finally met hers, and following his gaze was the smell of that meadow, that tinkle of birdsong that made Storm's heart flutter. She stared back at Castiel, forcing the uncertainty out of her mind and feeling like every moment she maintained eye-contact with the angel was a moment in which a nerve of hers was obliterated.

"You were in Heaven when you fell," said Castiel evenly.

"But I'm not an angel."

"No."

"Then what—"

"Castiel," said Uriel in a warningly sing-song voice that made Storm want to decapitate him with a hand axe. "You know what we've been ordered to do."

"_Castiel," _said Storm in a voice that suggested she had said his name in this manner a thousand times previously. "What is Atheda—"

She was cut off by the sudden appearance of others, one of them being a bloody and beat up Ruby. The entire group seemed to withdraw breath at the sight of them and Storm knew at once that they must be demons.

"Alastair," said Dean under his breath.

"Heya, Dean," the one called Alastair said as he took in his surroundings, smiling at the lot of them. "And what a group you have here. A poor exiled angel, and . . ." he paused at Storm, arching a brow and lifting his nose in the air as if to actually sniff her out. "Well, don't you just smell beautifully twisted. This what you're hiding, Winchester?"

"Turn around and walk away now," ordered Castiel.

"Sure, just give us the girl. We'll make sure she gets punished good and proper."

"You know who we are and what we will do. I won't say it again. Leave now... or we lay you to waste."

"Think I'll take my chances."

And then a fight amongst angels and demons ensued. Storm lost track of whom was attacking whom in the rain of chaos, feeling a strong tug on her forearm that forced her out of harm's way.

"Storm, you need to get yourself out of here." It was Sam, coming to her aid as always, but Storm shook her head.

"How can I, Sam Winchester?" said Storm, just as Dean delivered a crowbar to the top of Alastair's head.

"You need to."

"No."

"_Why?"_

"Because you _still _haven't told me what porn is!" she said, and Sam's grip loosened out of incredulity.

A weight of another being forced her away from Sam and her body was slammed onto the barn floor head-first, white stars appearing in her vision as she strained to catch vision of her attacker. One of Alastair's demons was in the process of pinning her to the ground but Storm's body acted before her mind had even comprehended what was happening.

Her palm found the demon's forehead and with the sensation of a giant thorn shooting up her arm, the taste of demonic blood poisoned the tip of her tongue as the demon exploded. Along with it, so did her brain where a pain so severe was starting, that for a good moment she forgot her location, her surroundings, and overall what was happening.

"_Storm."_

She didn't know who was shouting her name, but as she at last opened her eyes, she discovered her entire being was soaked with the innards of demon.

She recovered herself just in time to see Anna rip a chain around Uriel's neck. He didn't have time to even protest before the pendant was smashed onto the floor and a bright light, blinding and dominating the atmosphere of the room, poured into Anna's mouth. "Shut your eyes. Shut your eyes! _Shut your eyes!"_

Storm, disoriented and discombobulated, only just managed to shut her eyes, but even through her closed eyelids she could make out the white light that seemed to sear into her skin. It was over before it began, and when Storm thought it safe to open her eyes, she found that Anna and Alastair were gone.

"Storm . . ." said the same voice that had just been shouting her name, and she looked up at Sam who was staring down at her bloodstained body.

"I'm alright," she said, but allowed Sam to help her to her feet.

"Well, what are you guys waiting for?" Dean was saying to the angels. "Go get Anna, unless, of course, you're scared."

"This isn't over," said Uriel.

"Oh, it looks over to me, junkless."

But Uriel's eyes were sweeping over Storm who was still using Sam to balance herself, wiping blood from her face. He looked at her directly as he said, "Remember, Dean; time bomb. Let's see how long you can survive with her in your midst before she goes haywire and ends up painting her body with your brother's blood."

Castiel met Storm's gaze, and within that moment, something almost like an apology was written in the blue of his eyes before both angels disappeared.


End file.
